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[REL 


EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 


BEING 


THE ELY LECTURES FOR 1890 


BY 


LEWIS FRENCH STEARNS 


PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN BANGOR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1890 


CopyriGcut, 1890, By 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


TROW'S 
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
NEW YORK 


TO MY WIFE 


WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT 
THESE LECTURES WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN UNDERTAKEN 
WHOSE SYMPATHY AND COUNSEL 
HAVE BEEN MY CONSTANT RELIANCE IN THEIR PREPARATION 
AND WHOSE EFFICIENT HELP 

HAS LIGHTENED THE LABOR OF CARRYING THEM THROUGH THE PRESS 

THEY NOW IN THEIR COMPLETED FORM 
ARE 


DEDICATED 


PREF ACH. 


Turse lectures were delivered to the students of 
Union Theological Seminary, in the Adams Chapel, 
during the latter part of January and the earlier part 
of February, 1890, as one of the courses upon the 
foundation established in the Seminary by Mr. Zebu- 
lon Stiles Ely, in the following terms: 


‘‘The undersigned gives the sum of ten thousand dollars to 
the Union Theological Seminary of the city of New York, to 
found a lectureship in the same, the title of which shall be 
‘The Elias P. Ely Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity.’ 

“ The course of lectures given on this foundation is to com- 
prise any topies that serve to establish the proposition that 
Christianity is a religion from God, or that it is the perfect 
and final form of religion for man. 

‘¢ Among the subjects discussed may be : 

‘*The Nature and Need of a Revelation ; 

‘‘The Character and Influence of Christ and his Apostles ; 

‘‘The Authenticity and Credibility of the Scriptures, Mira- 
cles, and Prophecy ; 

‘¢The Diffusion and Benefits of Christianity ; and 

‘¢The Philosophy of Religion in its Relation to the Chris- 
tian System. 

“Upon one or more of such subjects a course of ten public 
lectures shall be given, at least once in two or three years. 
The appointment of the lecturer is to be by the concurrent 


vi PREFACE. 


action of the directors and faculty of said Seminary and the 
undersigned ; and it shall ordinarily be made two years in ad- 
vance.” 


The lectures are here given as originally prepared. 
It was thought best in delivering them to reduce their 
number to eight, a course which necessitated consider- 
able condensation and omission. 

An Appendix has been added, in which will be 
found references and acknowledgments to the authori- 
ties consulted in the preparation of the work, and 
some illustrative matter which could not well be incor- 
porated into the text. 

The lectures are now offered to the Christian public 
in the earnest hope that they may contribute in some 
degree to the advancement of the Saviour’s kingdom. 


Bangor, ME., October 1, 1890. 


a 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE I. 

PAGE 

THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY, - - + + * + © © * + = 1 
LECTURE II. 

PHILOSOPHICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS—THEISTIC, . . + = - 34 


LECTURE ITI. 


PHILOSOPHICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS—ANTHROPOLOGICAL, . 69 
LECTURE IV. 

THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE,. . - - * + * + + 5 110 
LECTURE V. 

Toe GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE,. . - - + + * * + ° 154 


LECTURE VI. 


THe VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE,. . - + + * ' . 195 


Vill CONTENTS. 


LECTURE VII. 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS, 


LECTURE VIII. 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS, 


LECTURE IX. 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES, . 


LECTURE X. 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES : CONCLUSION, . 


APPENDIX, 


. 269 


. 310 


. 379 ° 


THE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 


THE EVIDENCE 


OF 


CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


LECTURE L 
THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 


My choice of a subject has been determined by sev- 
eral considerations. In the first place, I am desirous 
of presenting to you young men, whom it is my privi- 
lege to address, some aspects of the great field of 
Christian Evidences likely to be particularly prominent 
during the generation in which you are called to labor, 
and therefore calculated to be of especial value in your 
practical work. Then, it is my wish to leave un- 
touched those topics that have been already so ably 
and successfully treated by my predecessors in this 
Lectureship. Finally, looking at the subject from the 
scientific point of view, I am convinced that this is an 
opportune time for the discussion of a most important 
department of apologetics, which hitherto, though not 
entirely neglected, has received, for the most part, scant 
recognition. For these reasons I have selected as our 
theme The Evidence of Christian Experience. I pray, 
that in our discussion of it we may have the aid of him 
with whom that experience brings us into personal in- 


2 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tellectual, as well as spiritual, contact, and who has so 
freely promised his Spirit to all who ask him. 

In the present introductory lecture, I shall aim to 
find a background for the high topics that are to be 
presented, in a brief survey of the changes which have 
taken place in the form and method of the Christian 
evidences during the century upon whose last decade 
we are soon to enter. 

Of the existence of such changes every thoughtful 
Christian scholar isaware. The theological sciences are 
no exception to the law of development which governs 
all the provinces of scientific investigation. The truth 
of the Christian revelation abides the same, though 
even this was given to mankind by a gradual process 
extending over many ages. But the church of Christ, 
notwithstanding the constant aid of the Holy Spirit, 
enters only by degrees into the possession of the truth 
given it in the redemptive revelation. The kingdom 
of God comes but slowly in the intellectual sphere, as 
well as in the moral and spiritual. The Christian 
world grows wiser in divine things, as it grows better, 
not all at once but little by little. Hence we must 
regard divinity as a progressive science. And hence 
we shall expect to find that science which has for its 
object the proof and defence of the truths set forth by 
divinity in systematic form, in like manner progressive. 
As the ages advance and the unending battle against 
unbelief and error, in which the militant church is ever 
engaged, goes forward, we learn to see more clearly 
through the smoke and confusion of the fight the in- 
vincible fortress of our faith and the methods by which 
the foe is to be dislodged from its approaches. 

At the beginning of the present century comparative 


THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 3 


peace reigned in the Anglo-Saxon section of Protestant 
Christendom. The old deism, which made its appear- 
ance during the latter part of the seventeenth century, 
and flourished during the first half of the eighteenth, 
had received its death-blow. On the practical side it 
had been overcome by the great religious revival that 
began in the work of the Wesleys and Whitefield, and 
swept in a life-giving stream over Great Britain and 
America, giving rise to the great Methodist denomina- 
tion and to the Evangelical party in the Church of Eng- 
land, and bringing new spiritual power to the other 
bodies of orthodox Christians. On the intellectual side 
deism had been vanquished with its own weapons by a 
long series of eminent Christian scholars, among whom 
we naturally think first of Bishop Butler, the author 
of the famous Analogy, and Archdeacon Paley, the 
author of the no less famous Lvidences. 

Let us look at deism, for the purpose of better un- 
derstanding its attack upon Christianity, and then at 
the system of defence by which a foe so vigorous and 
formidable was at last completely routed and driven 
from the field. 

Deism had its origin in the decline of the religious 
life that followed the English Civil War and culminat- 
ed in the period subsequent to the Revolution. It was 
the manifestation in the religious sphere of the great 
revolt against authority which characterized the seven- 
teenth an eighteenth centuries and had its roots in the 
Renaissance ana the Reformation. The aim of deism 
was to bring religion into complete agreement with rea- 
son. By reason it meant, not the reason of the Christian, 
not the reason of the scholar or philosopher, but the rea- 
son of the common man. This was set up as the arbi- 


4 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


ter in the sphere of religious truth. Whatever dogmas 
or assumed facts were repugnant to it must be dis- 
carded. The deists believed with undoubting assur- 
ance that the reason can furnish out of its own re- 
sources the great fundamental truths of religion. They 
claimed that the existence of one supreme personal 
Deity is clearly recognizable in the constitution of nat- 
ure and of the human soul. The tendency of deism, 
however, was to separate God altogether from the 
world, and to confine his efficiency to the creation of 
the universe and the establishment of its laws. Though 
personal, he was not so much a living God as a Pri- 
mum Movens, postulated by the reason to explain the 
origin of things. Great stress was laid upon man’s obli- 
gation to serve God as his will is revealed in the law of 
conscience. The doctrines of immortality and of a fut- 
ure state of rewards and punishments were also taught. 

Miracles were discarded as violations of the order of 
nature, and hence unworthy of God. The later deists 
availed themselves of Hume’s argument against mira- 
cles, derived from the fallibility of human testimony 
and its worthlessness when opposed to the universal ex- 
perience of men respecting the uniformity of natural 
law, though Hume’s sceptical philosophy was destruc- 
tive of all that was positive in their own beliefs. Su- 
pernatural revelation, like miracles, was denied. Basing 
themselves firmly upon the platform of natural religion, 
the deists rejected all those teachings of the Christian 
scriptures which go beyond it. The Bible was regard- 
ed as valuable only in so far as it is a ‘republication of 
the religion of nature.” The doctrines of the Trinity, 
of Christ’s divinely human person, of the atonement, of 
the new birth, and all the other distinctively Christian 


THE HVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 5) 


truths, were rejected as irrational mysteries, If any 
especial significance was attached to the Saviour’s teach- 
ings, it was on the ground that he was a restorer of the 
true doctrine of natural religion. 

It is not needful for our purpose to give any but 
the most general statement of the tenets of deism. 
The movement was a singular mixture of strength and 
weakness. Its strength lay in the great truths which 
it maintained. We may be sure that no religious or 
philosophical system which has for any long period 
dominated the minds of considerable numbers of men 
can be wholly false. There is always some element 
of truth in it, and it is for this reason that men accept 
it. The religious truth asserted by deism is of the 
highest importance. God, duty, and immortality are 
the invincible pillars upon which the whole super- 
structure of religion rests. Moreover, deism was but 
the logical consequence of the rationalistic tendency of 
the prevalent orthodoxy, which was quite as earnest as 
the heterodoxy of the time in the demand that reason 
should be made the test and standard of truth. 

But deism had also its elements of weakness, which 
were certain in the end to open the way for its over- 
throw. It held a half-way and defenceless position 
between Christian theism and the vigorous philosophi- 
cal systems of scepticism, pantheism, and materialism. 
It was in constant danger of being caught in the 
open field with no place of refuge at hand. It is in- 
consistent to admit the existence of a personal God, 
the Author of nature and its laws, and yet to deny the 
possibility of miracles and special revelation. It argues 
an imperfect use of the reason to find fanlt with 
Christianity because of its mysteries and difficulties, 


6 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


when mysteries and difficulties equally great exist in 
nature, which, according to the distinct admission of 
the ‘deist, is of divine constitution. If there be a 
personal God, and if there be a system of facts and 
truths purporting to be a revelation from him, accred- 
ited by miracles and other infallible evidences of di- 
vine origin, the question as to the reality of the rev- 
elation becomes a purely historical one. Consistency 
requires that deism should accept these conclusions, or 
else abandon its doctrine of a God altogether and go 
over into one of the non-theistic camps.’ 

The evidences of Christianity which brought about 
the downfall of deism, and which at the beginning of 
the present century had been wrought into a well-de- 
fined system, find typical expression in the famous 
works of Butler’ and Paley * already referred to. The 
former deals most fully with the philosophical ques- 
tions involved. It isan argument ex concesso. It does 
not enter into the general question as to the possibility 
of miracles and revelation or their antecedent proba- 
bility. Still less does it follow the orthodoxy of the 
earlier stages in the deistical controversy in the attempt 
to prove the truth of the Christian doctrines by showing 
their conformity with the tests and standards of reason. 
Its task is the more modest one of showing that, grant- 
ing the existence of a personal God (as the deist was 
quite willing to do), the presumption of nature is fa- 
vorable to the truth of Christianity and the validity of 
its evidences. The deist has no right to raise objec- 
tions against revelation which bear equally against the 
constitution and course of nature. He has no right to 
object to a line of argumentation, in proof of revelation, 
which he accepts with regard to all the common affairs 


SS - — 


THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. zé 


of life. Itis not claimed that the evidences of Chris- 
tianity give absolute proof, but only that they afford 
such reasonable probability as lays every candid and 
right-minded man under obligation to act upon the as- 
sumption that the facts and doctrines with which they 
are concerned are true. 

The objections being thus removed, the way is opened 
for the positive evidence, which is presented in its typ- 
ical form by Paley. This is pre-eminently the proof 
from miracles, though the arguments derived from the 
fulfilment of prophecy, and from other facts confirma- 
tory to the truth of Christianity, find a place alongside 
of it. The chief stress is laid upon the historical evi- 
dence that the miracles actually occurred. This rests 
upon the testimony of the original witnesses contained 
in the Christian scriptures, the authenticity of which is 
proved by the commonly accepted methods of literary 
evidence. The credibility of the witnesses is shown by 
the fact, substantiated not only by the statements of 
the scriptures but also by contemporary history, that 
they “ passed their lives in labors, dangers, and suffer- 
ings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the ac- 
counts which they delivered, and solely in consequence 
of their belief of those accounts.” * Tere is historical 
evidence which carries with it such a high degree of 
probability as must satisfy every reasonable mind. But 
if the miracles actually occurred, the Christian system 
must be a revelation from God and is to be accepted 
upon divine authority. What are the contents of this 
revelation, is a matter of interpretation, about which 
Christians may differ. But whatever is clearly recog- 
nized as taught in the scriptures, whether fact or doc- 
trine, is to be implicitly received. 


8 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Here, then, is a definite system of evidence, admira- 
bly adapted for its purpose. There can be no question 
that it was successful. The deistical assaults upon re- 
vealed religion were driven back by the deist’s own 
methods. Reason was met by reason. The fight was 
upon ground of the unbeliever’s own choice, and his de- 
feat was utter. AJ] was done with consummate skill. 
The candid seeker after truth clearly perceives the 
balance turning to the Christian side. The world 
has never seen finer reasoning of its kind, more con- 
vincing, better sustained, characterized by more of the 
clearness and simplicity of superior truth, than that of 
Butler and Paley. 

The works of these two great writers became the 
text-books in English and American institutions of learn- 
ing. An extensive evidential literature now made its 
appearance, following the lines just indicated with more 
or less conformity in detail. This type of apologetics 
maintained itself till long past the middle of the pres- 
ent century. Most of the educated men now in middle 
life received their training in the evidences from text- 
books which are merely a reworking of Butler’s and 
Paley’s materials, if not from the treatises of those 
authors themselves. Even now the influence of this 
system is widely felt. | 

Meantime, however, changes have taken place in the 
philosophical and theological worlds which have quite 
revolutionized the problem of apologetics. 

The assault upon Christianity has changed its charac- 
ter. Deism yielded to other forms of unbelief. Dis. 
lodged in England, it passed over to the Continent,where, 
in the guise of ‘materialism and atheism, it led a wild 
and stormy life in France, and then found welcome and 


THH HVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 9 


house-room in Germany, sobering itself there to the 
staid and respectable ways of rationalism. But it car- 
ried its death-warrant with it. It was doomed to perish 
of its own inherent weakness. The great movement of 
philosophical thought which began with Kant and cul- 
minated in Hegel found the so-called “ vulgar ration- 
alism ” in such a state of decadence that stalwart blows 
were scarcely needed for its overthrow. The new 
pantheism, in the vigor of its youth and the enthusiasm 
of its hopes, made easy work with the old deism, and 
then turned—at first with friendly words and offers of 
alliance—to settle its account with Christianity. 

The Christian faith has probably never encountered 
a more dangerous adversary than this German panthe- 
ism. The insidiousness of its approach and the cunning 
of its attack gave it a tremendous advantage. Deism, 
in the days of its vigor, was a straightforward, honest, 
enemy, dealing hard blows and ready to receive them. 
Pantheism came with a Judas-kiss and a ‘ Hail, Mas- 
ter!” Its evil intent was hidden under pious phraseo- 
logy. As one listens to its teachings, one is tempted to 
say with Margaret in Goethe’s Laust: 


‘Das ist alles recht schén und gut ; 
Ungefiihr sagt das der Pfarrer auch, 
Nur mit ein bischen andern Worten.” ° 


It had also its element of truth, which gave plausibil- 
ity to its claims, especially when set in opposition to 
the deistical rationalism. The immanence of God in 
the world and the human soul, which deism repudiated, 
it emphasized. Where deism denied miracles and 
revelation, pantheism made every common phenome- 
non of nature a miracle, and all history a continuous 


10 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


revelation of God. It found an intelligible, though 
unorthodox, meaning for the Christian mysteries of the 
Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, and the new 
birth. If it denied the personality of God and the 
conscious immortality of the soul, it did so in language 
not readily understood in its true meaning by the 
Masses. 

The pantheistic philosophy did not discard Chris- 
tianity, but it attempted to give it at every point a 
naturalistic explanation. This it did with a wealth of 
resource, a depth of insight, a sympathetic appreciation, 
a skill of delineation, which deserve the highest ad- 
miration. As has already been intimated, it repre- 
sented the whole history of mankind as a continuous 
revelation of God. The ethnic religions exhibit the 
lower stages in the process, giving under imperfect 
forms of symbolical representation the eternal truths of 
man’s spiritual relations. Christianity is the highest 
stage, the “absolute religion,” which gathers up into 
itself all the scattered fragments of truth in the other 
systems. Still, Christianity itself gives the truth in the 
form of symbols, and it is the part of philosophy to dis- 
engage the substance from the form and reveal the eter- 
nal idea which underlies the figurate representation. 

The strength of the pantheistic attack lay in its re- 
markable power of historical criticism. From what has 
just been said we can readily sée that it furnished a new 
and most effective historical method. Deism had at- 
tempted to explain historical Christianity in accordance 
with its philosophical principles, but it had gone little 
beyond the blunt denial of the supernatural element in 
the scriptures, and had not hesitated, when pressed to 
account for the presence of this element, to charge the 


THH EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. id 


Bible writers with forgery and fraud. Its procedure 
was poor and awkward compared with that of panthe- 
ism. The latter, while equally strong in its denial of 
the supernatural and miraculous in the Bible, under- 
took to show that they are the result of a perfectly 
natural development, according to which the idea con- 
stantly tends to clothe itself in figurate and symbolical 
representations, and these to attach themselves to his- 
torical facts. In this way men unconsciously idealize 
history, covering it with a growth of poetical or legen- 
dary additions. Or, with more definite intent, they 
manipulate the history to make it the vehicle of some 
doctrine, itself a symbolical representation of the domi- 
nant idea, under the influence of which they are all 
the time unconsciously acting. It is the part of the 
historical critic to reverse the process, to separate the 
ideas from the symbols, and both from the facts, and 
to reconstruct the history in its true and original form. 

The publication of Strauss’s Leben Jesu,’ and of the 
writings of Baur’ and the Tiibingen school, marks the 
beginning of the overt attack upon Christianity. The 
former struck at the very citadel of Christian truth by 
its attempt to give a naturalistic explanation of the 
gospel story of Christ’s person and life through the 
theory of myths that grew up spontaneously in the 
generation after the Saviour’s death. The latter, with 
a much greater outlay of learning and profundity of 
thought, sought to account for the New-Testament 
books by the assumption that they were Zendenz- 
Schriften, writings with a theological purpose, designed 
to represent one or the other side of an alleged struggle 
for ascendency between the parties of Peter and Paul, or 
to bring about a reconciliation between them—ascribing 


12 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the larger number of these books, including the four 
Gospels, to the second century after the Christian era. 
In both cases the person of Christ, though recognized as 
historical, is represented as seen through a haze of later 
opinions, so that all that is divine in his essential 
nature, and miraculous in his life and works, is to be 
explained as the addition of a subsequent age. Jesus 
was a good man and true, divine as all men are divine, 
through the immanence of the universal Spirit, a man 
who perhaps more than others realized the divine idea 
in his life and expressed it in his teachings; but the 
Christ of the church doctrine had no historical exist- 
ence. 

The reign in Germany of the pantheistic philosophy, 
and of the theological schools to which it gave rise, 
was short. The great systems that attained such domin- 
ant influence during the first four decades of the present 
century fell in quick succession. Hegel’s philosophy, 
which for a time seemed likely to justify its own boast 
of having attained absolute and final truth, had lost its 
hold before the century was half over. There was 
but a short passage to the naturalism of Feuerbach and 
the materialism of Biichner and Vogt. Strauss ran 
quickly through all the stages in the downward prog- 
ress of pantheism, and died, to all intent and purposes, 
an atheist. The same powerful opponent of historical 
Christianity, in his second Life of Christ, went over to 
the position of the Tiibingen school, greatly modifying, 
if not throwing overboard, his hypothesis of myths. 
The Tiibingen school itself long ago lost its hold upon 
the best thought of Germany, even in unbelieving 
circles. To-day the men of influence in Germany who 
teach the old pantheism can be counted upon the fingers 


THE HVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 13 


of a single hand. Nevertheless, it would be untrue to 
say that pantheism has ceased to be dangerous to 
Christianity. As its first blows were dealt in the dark, 
its covert attacks have had power long after its public 
reputation has waned. The method it originated has 
become a formidable instrument in the hands of un- 
believers. It has continued to live in the cultivated 
thought of our age. Its historical criticism survives, 
now that the use made of it by Strauss and Baur has 
fallen into desuetude. The influence persists in litera- 
ture. It has passed over from the Continent to Eng- 
land and America. We can scarcely take up a news- 
paper or a book without meeting traces of it. The 
tendency has been popularized by the writings of 
Carlyle in England and Emerson in our own country. 
The pantheistic assault is not yet defeated. It is still 
powerful, and, if the signs of the times are to be trust- 
ed, it is likely to be pushed at no very distant period 
with renewed strength. 

But the pantheistic attack upon Christianity is not 
the only one which this century has witnessed. An- 
other, in some respects quite as formidable, influence 
is to be taken into account in our consideration of the 
changes which have brought about the present state of 
apologetics. I refer to the great‘scientific movement, 
which had been growing in importance from the be- 
ginning of the century, but attained its full power 
through the impetus received from the publication of 
Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, and the consequent 
general acceptance by scientific men of the theory of 
organic evolution. It is indeed true that there is no 
necessary conflict between any scientific discoveries and 
the doctrines of religion and Christianity, and that 


r 


14. HVIDENOCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the most instructed and candid scientific men have 
from the beginning recognized the fact. The first ef- 
fect, however, of the wonderful advances made in the 
physical sciences was to produce the impression that 
the foundations not only of revealed religion, but also 
of theism itself, were undermined. Unquestionably 
very many of the most prominent men of science be- 
lieve this to be the case, while popular unbelief was 
convinced that it had become possessed of new and in- 
vincible weapons. ‘To those who can look back over 
the whole of the last twenty-five or thirty years, the 
survey is one full of interest. The eager and trium- 
phant dogmatism of the men who thought they had 
now accomplished the downfall of Christianity, and the 
trembling and confused defence of those who ought to 
have been its unshaken and confident champions, were 
significant features of the time. The wonder is that 
Christianity passed through the shock with so little 
detriment. 

I spoke of the dogmatism of the scientific opponents 
of Christianity, but it would be wrong to leave the im- 
pression that I consider it all dogmatism. The scienti- 
fic assault has been very different from the pantheistic. 
The latter was bitter, arrogant, unscrupulous ; the for- 
mer has been characterized for the most part by a hum- 
bler and more earnest spirit. The genuine man of 
science is, first of all, a seeker of truth. He has not so 
much a point to make as a world to discover. On the 
whole, the scientific attack on Christianity has been 
honest and open. In fact, in many cases it has been 
not so much an attack as a desertion. The new dis- 
coveries seemed to make a God needless, and so to dis- 
pense with the first condition of revealed religion. 


THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 15 


Darwin himself, as we learned from his Alemozrs, was 
at first friendly to the Christian system; but as his 
wonderful theory more and more took possession of 
his thought, his belief in God became evanescent 
and his religious faculty atrophied.” The devotees 
of physical science become so intent upon the one 
sphere of reality with which their investigations are 
concerned, that they first ignore, then forget, the exist- 
ence of the spiritual sphere, whence the distance is short 
to the denial of it altogether. Men thus become men- 
tally and spiritually myopic with respect to the highest 
range of truth and it disappears from their vision. 
Many of the scientific men whose utterances have done 
most to shake the confidence of the masses in Chris- 
tianity, have not been unkindly disposed toward relig- 
ion; rather they would have retained it, had they be- 
lieved they could honestly do so. 

But the very fact that there has been so much of 
earnestness in the scientific unbelief of our time, has 
given power to the assault upon Christianity. It has 
misled the masses and confused them as to the merits 
of the controversy. Moreover, the unwisdom which 
in many instances has marred the defence of Chris- 
tians, has produced an unfavorable impression. I 
doubt whether we who have lived in the noise and 
dust of the fight, realize how tremendous at times has 
been the onslaught of our adversaries. 

Thus far I have spoken only of the scientific opposi- 
tion. But, as is always the case, such an opposition 
formulates a philosophy for itself. One would natur- 
ally look for materialism as the philosophical accom- 
paniment of such a movement of scientific unbelief, 
and doubtless the thought of our times has had a de- 


16 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


cidedly materialstic tendency. It is not materialism, 
however, but agnosticism which has been the prevalent \ 
philosophy among our unbelieving men of science. It 
is curious that those features of Kant’s idealism, which 
Dean Mansel,’ following in the footsteps of Sir William 
TIamilton,” wrought over into a system having for its 
avowed purpose the defence of revealed religion and 
theism, should have been turned against the very foun- 
dations of religion itself. But such is the fact. We 
cannot but admire the shrewdness and ingenuity with 
which Herbert Spencer” performed his task of fur- 
nishing scientific unbelief with a philosophical basis. 
He was shrewd enongh to perceive that thinking men 
will not permanently rest satisfied with the materialis- 
tic explanation of things, but must have some kind of 
a metaphysics; he was ingenious enough to borrow his 
system from orthodoxy, to put it into such a shape 
as to satisfy the demand for a metaphysics, and so to 
bound the field of thought as practically to give full 
sway to a scientific method which takes no account of 
things higher than matter, force, and motion. 
Spencer’s system, however, great as has been the 
influence which it has exerted, has been from the first 
inconsistent with itself. It combines incongruous ele- 
ments, and its advocates are in a state of unstable 
equilibrium, doomed sooner or later to gravitate toward 
materialism or to rise into some form of theism. Ney- 
ertheless, for the time being, agnosticism has proved 
a powerful auxiliary to unbelieving science in the con- 
flict with religion and Christianity. It has long pre- 
vented the reaction, which would have come much 
sooner if the scientific opposition had taken the form 
of bare materialism. It has been merged in many 


THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 1 i 


instances with the pantheistic influence, to which it 
stands in close relation. 

The scientific assault has been directed chiefly against 
the theistic foundations of Christianity. But Chris- 
tianity itself has been directly involved in the strug- 
gle. Christianity has stood for theism. It has not been 
arrayed against deism, as in the earlier conflicts, nor 
has it entered into an alliance with deism to defend 
the common theistic truth. Rather it has stood as the 
great type and exemplar of theistic religion. The idea 
of a natural religion, standing midway between Chris- 
tianity and unbelief, has ceased to satisfy men’s minds. 
The issue is, Christianity or a non-theistic explanation 
of the universe. In practical matters, touching human 
morals and spiritual needs, the issue is, Christianity or 
secularism. 

It is easy to see that the enormous changes which 
have taken place in the nature and method of the as- 
sault upon Christianity have rendered the old evidences 
insufficient, and, for present purposes, to a great extent 
worthless. They were directed against deism, not 
against pantheism and agnosticism. The apologetics 
of the school of Butler and Paley served its day and 
generation, but it fails, except in a very limited sense, 
to serve ours. Deism, it is true, continues to exist asa 
tendency of popular thought, especially among unedu- 
cated people. Butits practical influence to-day is very 
small, Few are so ignorant as not to know something 
of the later theories of unbelief and methods of at- 
tack upon Christianity. It is no longer possible to ac- 
credit the Christian revelation in bulk by the miracles, 
and to prove the miracles by a mere “trial of the wit- 
nesses.” Apologetics is confronted by a much more 

s 


18 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


serious and difficult situation. The proof of the au- 
thenticity and credibility of the scriptural books has 
become a complicated, delicate, and arduous task, test- 
ing all the resources of literary criticism. The centre 
of the historical evidence is shifted from the miracles 
to the person of Christ. The contents of the Christian 
revelation, instead of being the thing to be proved, 
have become an element in the proof. The ethnic re- 
ligions can no longer be passed by with contempt, but 
their relation to Christianity and the distinguishing fea- 
tures of the latter as the religion of redemption throngh 
Christ must be made clear. It does not meet the de- 
mand of the time to prove the truth of Christianity as 
amere system of doctrine; what men need most to 
know is that it is the living, present, perennial power of 
God, by which he is redeeming the sinful world. 

The result has been that a new system of evidences 
has sprung up, supplanting the old, which did such 
good service in its day, and adapted to the needs of our 
own age. This system differs from its predecessor not 
only in the fact that it is directed against modern forms 
of unbelief, but also in being more scientific and com- 
prehensive. The theological thought of our times has 
come to realize that a distinction is to be made between 
apologies of Christianity, which consist in a mar- 
shalling of the proofs demanded by particular attacks, 
and have therefore only a temporary value ; and apolo- 
getics as ascience, which has for its object the complete 
exhibition of the proof of Christianity, as well as of its 
principles and methods, and thus its defence against all 
attacks, from whatsoever quarter they may come. The 
old evidences, in spite of all the learning and skill ex- 
pended upon them, were apologies and not scientific 


THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 19 


systems of apologetics. From the nature of the case 
they could not possess a permanent value. It was in- 
evitable that they should fall into disuse as the assault 
changed its form, with the unfortunate result of throw- 
ing suspicion upon the worth of all defences of the 
Christian faith. What is needed is a positive system 
of proofs adapted to all times and circumstances, by 
which we may not only meet attacks but forestall them, 
and carry the warfare into the enemy’s country. 

Such a system our modern evangelical theology is en- 
deavoring, with a good degree of success, to furnish. I 
now ask your attention to a consideration of its more 
important details. 

In the first place, the starting-point of contemporane- 
ous apologetics is furnished by the truer, because more 
comprehensive and spiritual, conception which prevails 
of the nature of Christianity. The old evidences were 
based upon a narrow and inadequate notion of the fact 
they had to prove. There is often a deeper connection 
between the orthodox theology and the unbelief of an 
age than a superficial view would suggest. Not infre- 
- quently the defects which are exaggerated in the latter 
exist in a different form in the former, furnishing at 
least a partial justification for the heterodox protest. 
Deism did not have the monopoly of rationalism. There 
was a strong rationalistic element in the orthodoxy 
which it attacked. Christianity, according to the prey- 
alent conception of the old theology, is a system of ob- 
jective truth, a body of doctrines to be apprehended 
and accepted by the intellect. It is a doctrinal revela- 
tion, that is, a divinely communicated, and otherwise 
inaccessible, system of truth. The inadequacy of the 
conception was aggravated by the identification of rev- 


90 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


elation with the Bible, the truth recorded with the ree- 
ord which preserves it. 

But our best modern theological thought has reached 
a more accurate understanding of Christianity. It 
does indeed include a doctrinal element, but it includes 
far more than that. Christianity is the whole redemp- 
tive activity of God in Christ. It is God in Christ rec- 
onciling the world unto himself. When, however, we 
come to scrutinize it more carefully, we discover that its 
unity is twofold. It may be considered from two quite 
different points of view—namely, as the redemptive 
revelation, made to mankind in the past, and complet- 
ed in the work of Christ and his apostles, and as the 
actual system of redemptive forces and agencies ever 
since in operation. 

Let us examine each. 

By the revelation we mean God’s self-communica- 
tion and self-manifestation to men that he might re- 
deem them from sin. This also subdivides itself, upon 
closer scrutiny, and we distinguish in it two elements, 
the facts and the doctrines of redemption, the saving 
grace and truth. 

Let us look first at the facts. We call Christianity 
a historical revelation, and most truly. It is based 
upon a series of outward events. In the progress of 
the revelation God interposed in human history in ex- 
traordinary ways, produced changes not to be account- 
ed for by the present order of nature, and introduced 
new forces into the sphere of human life. tevelation 
may be regarded as a supernatural evolution, by which 
a new system of spiritual agencies was brought into 
the world for the redemption of sinful men. It is thus 
largely concerned with historical facts, differing indeed 


- = 


THH EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 21 


from other facts through the supernatural element 
everywhere present in them, but incorporated, along 
with natural events, in the ordinary history of the 
race. 

These facts find their presupposition and explanation 
in the creation of the world and of man, and in the 
fall of the latter. No sooner did sin begin to work 
than God’s redemptive grace also began to work and 
to manifest itself in outward events and changes, that 
is, historically. The foundations were laid in the 
dealings of God with the Patriarchs. The separation 
and education of the Chosen People further advanced 
the work. The sacrificial system, the theocratic king- 
ship, and especially the prophetical office, were potent 
agencies in God’s hands for carrying on the process 
of redemption and preparing the way for the great 
Prophet, Priest, and King, who was to come. The 
whole history of Israel is a disclosure of redemptive 
grace. 

Then came Jesus Christ, the great redemptive Fact, 
God manifest in the flesh and present to save. Now 
the events follow thick and fast, everyone of them 
vitally important in the Christian system—the incar- 
nation, the birth, the childhood, the early life of the 
Saviour. Next comes his ministry, with its actual man- 
ifestation of redemptive powers in the miracles, the 
teachings, the example of the God-man. Then follows 
the sacrificial death upon the cross, the great central 
fact of Christianity, which has given it the distinctive 
emblem by which it is known the universe over as 
the religion of the atonement. The resurrection and 
the ascension to the heavenly glory next come before us. 
The outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost 


299 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


marks the beginning of the new epoch, the actual be- 
stowal upon the Redeemer’s church of the full posses- 
sion of the powers of grace. The revelation 1s com- 
pleted by the work of the inspired and miraculonsly 
endowed disciples of the Master, who by his help laid 
the foundations of the church. 

Here, from first to last, we have a series of histori- 
cal events, all essential elements in Christianity. They 
ean never be ignored without destroying Christianity 
itself and reducing it to a lifeless rationalism or a 
vague and powerless spiritualism. 

But there is a second element in Christianity con- 
sidered as revelation, namely, doctrine. 1 do not assert 
that facts and doctrines are actually separated, for 
since they are integral and connected parts of the same 
organism of revelation, no sharp line can be drawn 
between them; yet they are capable of clear logical 
distinction. The facts are the manifestation of the 
redemptive grace; the doctrines, of the redemptive 
truth. In order to redeem men, God had need not only 
to bestow upon them the power of his grace, but also 
to make clear the nature of his redemption to their 
intellects, and thus bring it home to their hearts. Ac- 
cordingly, the revelation consisted, to a large extent, in 
the communication of truth to inspired men, who, in 
their turn, became the teachers of their fellows. Christ, 
during his ministry, was not only a Saviour by work 
and example; he was also a teacher, and this element 
in his work is more prominent than any other. The 
inspired apostles and their companions were emphati- 
cally preachers and teachers. 

It is to be noted that the doctrine presupposes the 
facts. It is chiefly concerned with them. This is true 


THE EHVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 23 


of both the ethical and the theological elements in the 
redemptive revelation. The facts tell their own story 
in part, but only in part. They need a divinely au- 
thorized exposition. Their relation to each other and 
their bearing upon human duty and destiny must be 
explained. Men need to be taught the way of salva- 
tion and the life of holiness. Thus are furnished the 
materials of Christian ethics and of a part of Chris- 
tian theology. Then these facts have an invisible back- 
ground of relation to God and the other world, which 
can be made known to men only by divine teaching. It 
is thus that the larger part of the truths composing the- 
ology are revealed. The Christian mysteries, as they 
are called, such as the Trinity, the incarnation, and 
the atonement, have come first to human knowledge in 
this way. This, in like manner, is the only source of 
knowledge respecting the world beyond the grave and 
the future history of the church and the world. 

The doctrinal element in Christianity, like the his- 
torical, is essential. Yet we need to be on our guard 
lest we give it too exclusive prominence. Revelation 
is not merely the communication of truth. As we have 
seen, the doctrinal element is only secondary, and would 
be without significance if the historical element were 
absent. It has been the mistake of rationalism in all 
ages to ignore the facts and to reduce the Christian 
revelation to a mere system of abstract doctrines, 

Before I leave this branch of the subject let me say 
a word about the Bible. The facts and the doctrines 
together make up the matter of the revelation. The 
Bible is the record of them. Upon this subject there 
has been much confusion, which may be avoided by a 
little clear thinking. The redemptive revelation and 


94. EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, 


the Bible are not identical. It is true that the Bible 
may be considered, regarding it as the work of inspired 
men and prepared under direct divine guidance, as a 
part of the revelation. It is also true that by a simple 
and familiar figure of speech we may identify the rec- 
ord with the things recorded, and thus correctly say 
that the Bible is God’s revelation to men. But we have 
to do here not with popular modes of statement—legit- 
imate enough homiletically—but rather with the ques- 
tion of scientific accuracy. Now, the Bible is not, 
strictly speaking, the same as the revelation. The rev- 
elation, in part at least, existed before the Bible. Its 
facts and doctrines were communicated orally before 
God moved the wills of prophets and holy men to com- 
mit them to writing. The record is one thing, the facts 
and doctrines recorded are another and different thing. 
The title of Chillingworth’s famous book, “ The Bible 
the Religion of Protestants,” does not state the truth. 
The Bible is not the religion of Protestants or of 
any other Christians; it is not revelation; it is not 
Christianity. It is the inspired record of the facts and 
doctrines of the Christian revelation. As such it is of 
priceless value to the church and to mankind. It brings 
before us who live in the latter days the original reve- 
lation in all its primitive freshness, and thus is able, by 
the power of the Holy Spirit, to make us wise unto sal- 
vation. 

But the redemptive revelation is only one element in 
Christianity. There is another of equal, and, in some 
ways of looking at it, even of greater importance. Chris- 
tianity is not merely a revelation finished centuries ago 
and possessed by us through written records. It is a 
system of redemptive agencies now at work in the 


THH HVIDENCEHS OF TO-DAY. 25 


world, in the church, and in the heart and life of 
every Christian. The redemptive revelation was God’s 
means of introducing into the world redemptive pow- 
ers, Which he brought in to stay, and which he has 
been administering during all the Christian ages 
through the agency of Christ and the Holy Spirit. 
The kingly office of Christ and the work of the Spirit 
make Christianity a living reality to-day. 

The Saviour, who liveth and was dead, and is alive 
forevermore, sits upon the throne of the universe and 
makes it his great work to save the world from sin. His 
ministry on earth, his atoning death, his rising from 
the dead and ascension into heaven, laid the founda- 
tion for the work he is doing to-day. His Spirit is every- 
where active, making known the truth of the Gospel, 
convincing of sin, converting, bearing witness to the I'a- 
ther’s forgiveness and grace, sanctifying, capacitating 
for service in the kingdom, bringing into the blessedness 
of heaven. He is ordering the events in national and 
personal life for the advancement of the kingdom and 
the building up of the church. The kingdom of God 
is inthe midst of us. This is Christianity by way of 
eminence, this system of spiritual agencies proceeding 
from Christ, and the effects they are producing in the 
world. Christianity belongs not only to the past, but 
also to the present. Its realities-—the reconciled Fa- 
ther, the glorified Christ, the omnipresent Spirit, the 
invisible kingdom of God, the new heart, the sanctified 
life, the consecrated activities of the individual and the 
church—are the essential facts of the spiritual world. 

Now these two elements of Christianity, the revela- 
tion and the present redemptive power, are organically 
united. Neither would be of use without the other. 


26 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


The historical, the doctrinal or rational, and the redemp- 
tive factors are all parts of one system. Yet, as was 
intimated a moment ago, there is a true sense in which 
the last is the most important. The others are essen- 
tial as foundations of the life; this is the very life it- 
self. It is useless to pr each the Christianity of eighteen 
centuries ago, if we ignore the Christianity of to-day. 

Upon int broad and comprehensive conception of 
Christianity is based the system of apologetics. The evi- 
dences correspond to the elements of Christianity as they 
have just been stated. There is here, if I may use the 
expression, a “natural system” of proofs. We have 
seen that the different factors of Christianity are organ- 
ically connected. Inlike manner there is an organism of 
proof, with mutually related and subordinated members. 
Modern logic has shown that proof is not a matter of 
haphazard. Every present reality is proved through its 
manifestations. Every fact of past history is proved, 
partly by its relation to present facts, and partly by the 
effects it has left behind, which last may be, and gener- 
ally are, embalmed in human testimony, ‘Truths are 
proved by their relation to facts present and past, and by 
their connection with other truths. Every present real- 
ity, historical fact and truth, has its own system of 
proofs, which it is the business of the defender of it to 
discover and set forth in their completeness. He may 
do this satisfactorily or only partially, scientifically or 
quite at random; he may present only the evidence re- 
quired by some present emergency. But still the full 
proof is there, and the skilled reasoner will find it and 
use it, setting forth all its elements and marshalling 
them in their logical connection. 

The evidences of Christianity thus exist in their cor- 


THE EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 27 


respondence with the different factors of Christianity, 
independently of the success or lack of success of the 
Christian apologist. To our modern apologetics be- 
longs the credit of having to a great extent discovered 
the system and of bringing it to scientific expression. 
It has transformed itself from a mere defensive art into 
a positive science. It proves the truth and reality of 
Christianity by a rational justification of all its ele- 
ments. 

The evidences fall into three groups, answering to 
the elements of Christianity already considered. 

At the head stand the historical evidences. These 
include all the proofs for the reality of the facts which 
constitute so large a part of the redemptive revelation. 
Inasmuch as the Bible is the chief, and in many cases 
the sole, record of these facts, the argument is largely 
concerned with questions respecting the authenticity, 
genuineness, credibility, and inspiration of the docu- 
ments through which we are made acquainted with the 
history of the redemptive revelation, both in its pre- 
liminary Old-Testament stage and in its culmination in 
Jesus Christ and the founding of the Christian church. 
Here belong the questions of biblical criticism. Under 
the same head are treated the evidences from proph- 
ecy and miracles. 

The historical evidence passes over, with no sharply 
drawn line of separation, into the rational, which has 
to do with Christianity as a system of truth. On the 
border stands the proof from the person of Christ, 
which is indeed a great historical fact, but derives its 
sionificance from the truth he reveals to men in his 
life and redemptive work. He is, as the apostle John 
declared, “full of grace and truth” (John 1. 14). The 


28 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


evidence for the truth of Christianity derived from— 
his wondrous personality and life, an evidence which 
has had more power during the Christian ages than 
any other except that of personal experience, is at once 
historical and rational. Here also belong the proofs 
derived from the need of revelation, from the intrinsic 
excellence of the Christian system, from the relation of 
Christianity to philosophy, and from its superiority to 
other religions. 

Finally, we have the evidence of the reality of 
Christianity as a working-power in the world. This 
may be called the practical evidence. It may be 
viewed under two aspects. 

This redemptive power of Christ manifests itself 
outwardly in the world, the church, and the individual. 
First, we have a historical form of the practical evi- 
dence, derived from what Christianity has done during 
the Christian ages in lifting men out of sin into purity 
of life, in reforming the abuses of human society and 
government, in advancing morality and civilization. 
Here we find a place for the argument from the in- 
crease in numbers, influence, and spiritual power, of 
the Christian church. Next comes the argument from 
the present influence of Christianity. Lastly, the out- 
ward evidence of the power of Christ in the changed 
lives and holy conversation of believers to-day is the 
great practical proof which works upon men with con- 
vincing effect. 

But the practical proof has still another form, name- 
ly, that which is to be the especial subject of these 
lectures, the evidence of Christian experience. This 
is derived from the manifestation to the believer 
himself, in his own inward spiritual life, of the presence 


THH EVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 29 


and power of God and the Christian realities. It is 
the evidence that is based upon the Christian’s regen- 
eration and sanctification. , 

While the evidences of to-day are characterized by 
the larger and truer view of Christianity and the more 
scientific and comprehensive exhibition of the proofs 
of which I have spoken, there is one argument that is 
being brought into especial prominence, partly through 
the more general recognition that this place belongs to 
it of right, and partly because the exigencies of the 
non-Christian attack increasingly demand its employ- 
ment. The evidence upon which the Christian believer 
relies, in the ultimate resort, for the confirmation of his 
own faith, must be the chief argument for the truth of 
Christianity even for those who are not yet Christians. 
The assaults of pantheistic and agnostic, as well as of 
materialistic unbelief are directed chiefly against the 
claim of Christianity to be the redeeming power of God 
in the world to-day, and must be met by the proof which 
the individual believer and the church have in their 
own experience that the Gospel is indeed the power of 
Godinto salvation. The evidence of Christian experi- 
ence is thus being brought to the front. 

In accepting the situation and laying especial stress 
upon this central proof, evangelical theology is only re- 
turning to its own. The early’ and the medieval” 
church made little, if any, apologetical use of the ex- 
perimental evidence. But in the Protestant Reforma- 
tion it became, and for more than a century continued 
to be, in the form of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti 
internum, the chief proof for the truth of the Christian 
system." It is thus presented by Calvin in his Jnsti- 
tutes.° Its paramount importance is asserted in most of 


30 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the Protestant confessions of faith, and finds typical ex- 
pression in that of Westminster." During the seven- 
teenth century it occupies a well-recognized place in the 
Puritan theology of Great Britain and the Lutheran 
theology of the Continent. The somewhat narrow 
form in which the proof appears in the doctrine of the 
internal witness of the Spirit is enlarged to the full pro- 
portion of the experimental evidence in the writings of 
Richard Baxter, the great Puritan divine, who not with- 
out reason has the reputation of being the father of 
English apologetics.” During the prevalence of deism 
it does indeed fall into the background, but we still find 
it treated with great fulness by men like Owen” and 
Watts.” One of the first effects of the great revivals 
of evangelical religion by which the spiritual torpor of 
the deistic period was overcome, was the renewed recog- 
nition of the force of this argument by our great Ameri- 
can theologian Jonathan Edwards.” | 

In the traditional system of apologetics, however, as 
it was shaped by Butler and Paley, the evidence of 
Christian experience finds no place. Ido not mean 
that it was wholly ignored. Men like Chalmers, while 
not incorporating it into their system, have asserted its 
unique importance for the confirmation of Christian 
faith.” It has been urged with more or less of emphasis 
by such writers as Coleridge,” Bishop Wilson of Cal- 
cutta,” and in our own country President Hopkins™ and 
Dr. Charles Hodge.” Still, for the most part, it has been 
neglected, and it has been only comparatively recently 
that it has come once more into prominence. This lat- 
ter result has been due not only to the attacks upon 
Christianity of which I have spoken, and the positive 
growth of theological science among us, but also very 


a 


THE HVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. ol 


largely to influences proceeding from the evangelical 
theology of Germany. In that country the evidence of 
Christian experience has been more and more fully 
recognized since the efforts of Schleiermacher and his 
followers turned the tide of rationalism.” Among re- 
cent German theologians it has received especial atten- 
tion from Dorner” and Frank.” 

I do not think it would be too much to say that the 
recognition of this form of evidence is the essential and 
striking feature of the evidences of to-day. To make 
good this assertion, I shall not be able to refer you to the 
text-books of apologetics. With but few exceptions 
they still ignore it. But this need not surprise us. A 
reconstruction in the methods of theology, as in those 
of the other sciences, finds systematic expression only 
somewhat late, after the materials have long been gath- 
ered and tested. The makers of text-books are usually 
behind all other classes of scientific men. There is a 
literal, as well as a figurative, stereotyping which, in 
our country at least, interferes with the progress of 
thought in literature. But there are other regions to 
which we can look more confidently for the signs of the 
times. In the current periodical literature of our day, 
in the preaching of our ministers, and to a considerable 
extent in the lecture-rooms of our teachers of theology, 
the experimental proof is being estimated at its true 
value. 

My task in these lectures, which have for their object 
the exposition of this argument, will therefore be the 
grateful one of acting in a humble way as the interpre- 
ter of the best thought of our age in this department of 
theological investigation. 

In bringing the subject before you, let me remind 


02 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


you of the distinction already made between the science 
of apologetics and the apology of Christianity. The 
former has to do with the methods and principles by 
which the truth of Christianity may be proved; the lat- 
ter with the actual proof of Christianity itself in oppo- 
sition to the attacks made upon it. The present course 
of lectures will be not so much an apology as an essay 
in apologetics. J shall indeed endeavor to present the 
proof, both in general and in its details, as well as to 
meet the objections that may be brought against it. But 
my chief object will be, so to bring it before you that 
you may be able to use it practically in your ministerial 
work. If the result shall also be to strengthen your 
own faith, I shall rejoice; and I cannot but hope that 
this will be the case. But this will be incidental. I take 
it for granted that you are already in practical posses- 
sion of this most important proof. My aim will be to 
point out its scientific value and to help you to avail 
yourselves of it in the great and good work to which 
you have devoted your lives. 

It remains only to point out briefly the ground we 
are to traverse in the remaining lectures. In dealing 
with our subject it is my purpose to show how the 
argument from Christian experience presupposes the 
great principles of that theistic philosophy which grows 
out of the common religious and moral experience of men. 
Next I shall try to describe the genesis and growth of 
the evidence of Christian experience. This will open the 


way for the scientific or philosophical verification of this. 


experience—in other words, its justification as truth. 
After that I propose to take up the objections to the 
proof, as urged by both the opponents and the friends 
of Christianity, and to endeavor to give them full and 


—S ee 


ie stems 


ee 


THE HVIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 3d 


candid treatment. Finally, I wish to show the relation 
of the experimental to the other kinds of evidence, and 
thus to make clear its leading place in the organized 
system of the Christian proofs. 

I believe profoundly, and with undoubting conviction, 
in the importance of the subject. I trust that the result 
of these lectures will be to confirm you in the same be- 


lief. 
3 


LECTURE II. 
PHILOSOPHICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS—THEISTIC. 


In order properly to develop the evidence of Chris- 
tian experience, it is needful that we should carefully 
define our philosophical position. Every science pre- 
supposes some theory of the universe and its Ground ; 
and the same may be said of every scientific proof. 
The first step in any scientific presentation of facts 
cannot be taken without the help of such a theory. 

Now there is a definite philosophy underlying the 
proof of Christian experience and forming its necessary 
presupposition. It is best designated as the theistic phi- 
losophy. It stands opposed to those other philosophi- 
cal systems which bear the names of deism, pantheism, 
agnosticism, and materialism. Except upon the basis 
of it, it is hopeless for us to attempt to advance a 
single step. 

This theistic philosophy is, in a true sense, Christian. 
That is, it has been wrought out by Christian men on 
Christian ground under the light of the Christian revy- 
elation. But this fact does not impair its value when 
employed as an auxiliary in the evidence of Christian- 
ity, or lay us fairly open to the charge of reasoning in 
a circle. Like all philosophy, it has to do with mat- 
ters of universal validity, which can be verified by all 
_ men. It is not confined to the facts of Christian experi- 
ence, but deals with the universal religious experience, 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 35 


A man does not have to be a Christian, in order to 
understand and confirm it. It is simply the philosophy 
of religion as developed under the clarifying influence 
of Christianity. 

The importance of a clear statement of this philoso- 
phy is perceived when we consider the fact that the 
experience of the Christian is not an isolated phenom- 
enon, but directly and intimately connected with the 
general religious experience of mankind. It is be- 
cause men have the latter that they are able, when 
they enter into the distinctively Christian experience, 
to know it as divine. The evidence of the reality and 
divinity of Christianity is therefore dependent upon 
the reality and divinity of the common religious ex- 
perience. Unless there isa natural revelation, and a 
natural consciousness of God based upon it, it is useless 
for us to attempt a scientific proof of the truth of the 
Christian consciousness. But the proof of the reality 
of the universal religious experience is furnished by 
the theistic philosophy of religion. 

I know there are those who take a different view, 
and insist that the evidences of Christianity are in- 
dependent of the evidences of natural religion. And 
this much I would without hesitation concede to them 
—that the Christian, in his personal experience of 
God’s redeeming grace through Christ, as manifested 
in the new birth and the Christian life, possesses the 
certainty of all the facts and truths involved in the 
general religious experience. I would also grant that 
his knowledge of these facts and truths is much higher 
and more adequate than would be possible apart from 
Christianity.’ Nevertheless, in spite of these conces- 
sions, I do not believe that the higher knowledge and 


36 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


fuller experience of the Christian would have been 
possible, had he not passed through the lower stage. 
The skilled man of science, with his microscope and 
other instruments of investigation, and his technical 
knowledge, sees in the objects with which he is en- 
gaged not only all that the common man sees, but 
vastly more, and sees it far more adequately and truly. 
But his technical knowledge would never have been 
attained, and could not now be maintained, if he did not 
possess the common knowledge of ordinary men, which 
is at once the presupposition and necessary condition 
of his particular scientific accomplishments. So here 
—the distinctively Christian knowledge would be im- 
possible without the general religious knowledge. Just 
as in theology the first and second creations are vitally 
correlated, so in apologetics. Christianity does not 
discard nature but corrects it. It is, as Baxter says, 
‘medicinal to nature.”* It does not give men new 
powers, but enables them rightly to use their old ones. 

The importance, therefore, of the subject now before 
us cannot be too highly estimated. Here is the great 
battle-field upon which we must fight through the con- 
flict with the unbelief of onr times. Jf we permit an 
unbelieving philosophy to dictate to us the interpreta- 
tion to be put upon the facts of religion, we shall be 
left helpless in our defence of Christianity. We have 
reason to be thankful that the theistic philosophy has 
already won so many victories and compelled unbelief 
to so many concessions. 

In the present lecture we shall examine the philo- 
sophical presuppositions of the evidence of Christian 
experience, so far as they relate to the nature of relig- 
ion, the true conception of God and the proofs for his 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. St 


existence.’ In the next we shall consider the anthro- 
pological presuppositions which the theistic philosophy 
furnishes. 

I. We start with the subject of religion. 

The old definition, which we inherited from the ra- 
tionalism of the last century, corresponds to the ration- 
alistic conception of Christianity described in the pre- 
vious lecture. Religion was defined as the mode of 
knowing and worshipping God.’ At first the full mean- 
ing of the definition is not evident. It is disclosed when 
we discover, what is abundantly evinced by the writings 
of both unbelievers and Christians of the rationalistic 
school, that the knowledge intended is not the practical 
or experimental spiritual knowledge of God, but an in- | 


tellectual apprehension of the true doctrine concerning \* 


God, while the worship is that of outward forms and | 
rites rather than the personal spiritual relation of com- 
munion essential to the true conception of religion. The 
doctrinal tenets, the moral codes, the particular cudtus 
connected with the various religious systems, are re- 
garded as constituting religion itself. 

But the theistic philosophy of religion discards this 
definition as wholly inadequate. The constituents of re- 
ligion which are here made central and essential belong 
in reality merely to the circumference of the fact itself. 
We must look deeper if we will grasp the real essence 
of religion. What is the common element in all the 
religions of mankind, from the most degraded to the 
highest, from animism to Christianity, which differ- 
ences the religious sphere from every other department 
of human experience? What is the essential fact that 
gives religious faith its distinctive character? Not the 
system of dogmas, not the moral code, not the peculiar 


38 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


cult ; but the personal relation of God to the religions |* 
man and of the religious man to God.* Jeligion has 
been truly defined as “ the union of man with God, of 
the finite with the Infinite.” ° It involves, on the one 
side, a reaching-down and self-manifestation of God to 
inen—the presence, power, and grace of the living God, 
who is not far from every one of his children, the God 
in whom we live and move and have our being. On 
the other side, it involves some vague recognition, at 
the very least, on the part of man, some presentiment of 
the Supernatural, some sense of dependence upon him, 
and some trust in him. On the human side the knowl- 
edge may be of the most imperfect and even perverted 
kind, but there is always the certainty of a Power high- 
er than ourselves, on whom we are dependent, and to 
whom we owe obedience. Taith is the recognition of 
this fact and the correspondent action of the will. 
Christianity discloses to us the true nature of the di- 
vine side in this relation, but it does not for the first 
time reveal the relation itself ; this is universal, and in 
some sense universally known. 

Various theories have been advanced as to the origin 
of religion. The rationalistic orthodoxy has explained 
it through the hypothesis of a primitive revelation, 
which in the case of the heathen has become corrupt ; 
or has joined with deism in accepting the theory of in- 
nate religious ideas. Unbelief has had its other theories 
besides the one just mentioned. The old explanation, 
that religion was a human invention, originating in 
priestcraft and the policy of kings, has yielded to finer, 
if not more satisfactory, views. The same may be said 
of the theory—as old as the days of classic heathenism, 
but revived in the last century by Hume, and in our 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. Bg 


own by D. F. Strauss—that fear is the cause of religion, 
primus inorbe deos fecit timor. The hypothesis which 
has received most favor in the present generation, on 
account of its ready combination with the scientific doc- 
trine of evolution, is animism. According to Tylor,’ 
who has developed this view in his Primitive Cul- 
ture, men are led to the belief in a soul that is inde- 
pendent of the body by the phenomena of dreams, of 
death, and of certain morbid states. The idea thus 
originated they transfer to other forms of existence— 
plants, animals, and even lifeless things. Thus they are 
led to infer the existence of higher spirits, which be- 
come objects of worship. According to Herbert Spen- 
cer,° who closely agrees with Tylor as to the origin of 
the idea of the soul, religion has its source in the wor- 
ship of ancestral spirits. 

But all these theories are inadequate and artificial. 
The simple, and only satisfactory, explanation of the 
origin of religion is identical with the explanation of its 
maintenance and present existence. The actual pres- 
ence of God, and his influence upon a spirit made for _ 
communion with himself account for religion in all its _ 
stages. God reveals himself to men and communicates | 
himself to them in all ages, in all nations, and under all 
conditions. The defect and perversion of the human 
soul may dull the vision of God and make it possible 
for men to fall into the grossest errors respecting him. 
But all have some knowledge of God and find their 
souls going out to the Divine in some response to his 
revelation. God himself is the cause of the beginning, 
the progress, and the present power of religion. 

In what has been said the universality of religion 
has been implied. The modern science of religion has 


40 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


disproved, one after another, the alleged facts formerly 
adduced to prove that there are tribes of men without 
religion, until scarcely any are left, and the majority 
even of unbelieving scholars, in this department of in- 
vestigation, now concede that all men in their natural 
state are conscious of some relation to a supernatural 
Being or Beings.” But the Christian theist has no 
especial zeal upon this point. All that he insists is 
that men actually stand in the relation to God which 
constitutes religion. He fully admits the power of 
sin to blind men to the fact of this relation, as he ad- 
mits the power of a false philosophy to make them put 
a false interpretation upon the facts. The exceptions 
rather prove than disprove the rule. They show that 
in some cases men ignore the facts; but in no sense do 
they throw suspicion upon the facts themselves. 

The systematic study of the religions of mankind, in 
their history and present condition, has thrown a vast 
amount of light upon the relation to each other of the 
different faiths of mankind, and also upon their rela- 
tion to Christianity. This department of investigation 
is the child of our own century, and it has transformed 
the earlier conceptions of the subject. During thie 
days of rationalism deists and orthodox Christians had 
at the bottom the same principle and differed only 
in their application of it. The deists maintained that 
both the ethnic religions and Christianity, so far as 
they go beyond the precepts of natural religion, were 
the fraudulent invention of priests and rulers. The or- 
thodox denied that this is the true explanation of 
Christianity, but agreed in substance with the deists 
in their judgment of the heathen systems, differing 
only in explaining the truth in them as the remnant of 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS., 41 


an original instruction given to mankind through a 
primitive revelation. The heathen systems were usually 
ranged under the common and indiscriminate designa- 
tion of the “ false religions.” Little allowance was made 
for the direct influence of God upon the vast masses of 
mankind lying outside of Christendom. At most a 
merely general providence over them was conceded. 

But we have come to a better and truer view. We 
find that the religions of the world form part of one 
great system, with common characteristics and well- 
marked relations to each other. Great as are the errors 
and abuses which inhere in the ethnic faiths, the care- 
ful study of them shows that they contain an immense 
amount of moral and spiritual truth. Even Christian- 
ity—though radically differenced from them by its 
provision for redemption through Christ, which is its 
essential characteristic—is vitally correlated with them. 
The thoughtful Christian sees in these ‘ religions grow- 
ing wild,” as Schelling called them, not mere human 
constructions, but the human perversion of an essential 
and indefeasible relation between God and man; while 
he recognizes in their history the presence of God’s 
providence educating the human race—to use the help- 
ful conception with which Lessing’s famous work” has 
supplied us—for its high destiny in the kingdom of 
God. Christianity is at once the remedy of all that is 
false in the ethnic religions and the fulfilment of all 
that is true in them. Through all the discords produced 
by human sin and error runs a divine harmony, which 
is the prophecy of the final song of redemption through 
Christ.” 

In coming to this truer view of the nature of reli- 
gion, the theistic philosophy has learned some lessons 


42 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


from the pantheistic and agnostic, and even from the 
materialistic, philosophies. They have helped it to 
correct some of the errors of the earlier rationalism. 
But though they have taught it much, there is far more 
in them that it repudiates. It denies that the religious 
relation can exist between an unconscious, impersonal 
Ground of the universe and the human spirit. It 
utters its uncompromising protest against the natural- 
istic explanations of religion. It insists upon its own 
doctrine of the personal presence of God in the world 
and the human soul as the true and only way of ac- 
counting for the facts. 

II. This brings us to the teachings of the theistic 
philosophy respecting God and the proof it gives of his 
existence. 

The inadequacy of the old natural theology has been 
implied in what has been said upon the subject of reli- 
gion in general. As the rationalistic age bequeathed to 
our century an imperfect definition of religion, so it 
bequeathed a defective view of the nature of God. It 
is the view which nowadays is popularly ascribed to 
the deists alone, but which was, as a matter of fact, 
common to them and their orthodox opponents. The 
philosophy of religion was the common ground upon 
which the deistical and the Christian theologians met, 
and it is not strange that the lower view prevailed, 
and the foundations of orthodoxy were the concessions 
of deism. Reason demands that a God should be pos- 
tulated to account for the existence of the world. But 
the efficiency and the activity of this Creator were con- 
fined to the beginning of things. The finished world 
was thought competent to operate by the intrinsic power 
of its laws and forces. A formal rather than a full and 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 43 


hearty recognition was all that was accorded to thie 
divine providence. Berkeley” and Edwards ™ stand al- 
most alone among English-speaking philosophers and 
theologians in the first half of the last century in 
the assertion of the continual presence of a living God 
through whose unintermitting energy the world is 
maintained in existence. 

It is characteristic of this rationalistic tendency that 
it practically reduces God to a mere notion of the intel- 
lect ; indeed, this is the peculiarity of rationalism gen- 
erally, that it substitutes intellectual abstractions for 
realities. According to one view, the idea of God is 
innate, the result of a constitutional instinct or pre- 
formation of man’s being, through the power of which 
the idea in due time emerges into conscionsness. Of 
course it cannot thus be conceived as the result of the 
immediate influence of God upon the soul; on the 
contrary, it is purely a product of the intellect, stand- 
ing in no direct relation to the reality of things. 
When Descartes * taught that the innate idea of God 
has God for its cause, he did not mean that God 
creates it in man by his momently energizing, but that 
it is caused by his original shaping of the human con- 
stitution. According to another view, of which Locke,” 
the great opponent of innate ideas, is the most prom1- 
nent representative, the idea of God is a necessary in- 
ference from the existence of the world and of man. 
But this view agrees with that just mentioned, though 
in other respects so opposed to it, in regarding God 
as a notion of the intellect rather than as a living 
Fact. 

The traditional evidences for the divine existence 
manifest the same deistical tendency. The @ proore 


44. EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


argument starts from the idea of God and endeavors 
to make good its objective validity. But where the 
idea is regarded as a mere idea, an abstraction, the pas- 
sage from its subjective existence to the objective real- 
ity, from idea to fact, cannot but be questionable. 
Kant’s polemic may here be urged with unanswerable 
force. The existence of the idea cannot guarantee the 
existence of the thing, so long as we find in the mind 
itself the sufficient cause and explanation of the idea. 
Moreover, since the idea has been commonly rep- 
resented as having for its contents the full theistic 
conception of God, and yet as universal and neces- 
sary, the argument is contradicted by the palpable 
fact that the great majority of the race have no such 
conception of God. The @ posterior arguments are 
presented with more success, but labor under similar 
defects. The cosmological proof is urged to show 
that the universe must have had a First Cause. But 
this First Cause is represented as first in point of 
time, not as the ever-active Ground and present Gov- 
ernor of all things. It is the Primuwm ovens, postu- 
lated to account for the winding up of the clock that 
ever since has been going through the energy of its 
own mainspring. The same may be said of the psycho- 
logical argument, so strikingly set forth by Locke,” 
based upon the necessity of assuming an intelligent 
Cause for intelligent beings; it is the cause of their 
first existence rather than of their present existence. 
The teleological argument at first seems to promise 
more, especially where—inconsistently with the ordi- 
nary form of the cosmological proof—it is combined 
with the doctrine of special creations. This is the 
most thoroughly popular evidence and in its typical 


THEISTIC PRHSUPPOSITIONS. 45 


traditional form, as shown in Paley’s Watural Theo- 
logy and the Bridgewater Treatises,” it attained the 
highest perfection. But this argument, in the old 
form, is at the bottom as deistical as the others, and we 
have lived to see it fall into general disrepute under the 
influence of the scientific theory of evolution, with its 
all-comprehensive explanation of the special forms of 
the universe. There remains the moral proof, com- 
monly presented in the form of an argument from 
conscience. But inasmuch as conscience has been 
regarded at the highest as a constitutional instinct, 
pointing, like the other instincts, to the agency of God 
in the original creation of man, rather than as a 
witness to the continual presence of the holy God, this 
argument has not sufficed to deliver us from the 
vicious circle of deism. 

Thus the old theistic argument succeeded only in 
making good the deistical position. The favorite names 
of God employed by the old theologians betray the 
point of view from which they prevailingly regarded 
him. They called him the “great First Cause,” the 
“Creator,” the “Supreme Being,” the “ Deity.” In 
their thought he was a God afar off, and not near at 
hand ; a God who did a mighty work ages ago, and is 
now resting from his labors. 

It is now time to look at the higher and truer view 
of God to which our age has come. In attempting to 
delineate it, let me not seem to assert that this view is 
in every sense new. It has always been held implicitly 
by thinking Christians, and has been the spring and 
motive of their religious life. But itis one thing to 
maintain a view tacitly and implicitly, and quite an- 
other to hold it as an avowed philosophical and theo- 


46 HEVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


logical opinion. Progress in philosophy and theology 
largely consists in making the implicit explicit, in 
bringing out into the sunshine of clear thought the 
ideas which hitherto have been comparatively in the 
shade, even though they may always have influenced 
our actions. 

The influences which have been instrumental in 
effecting this salutary change in the philosophy of 
religion are, in the main, the same as those that 
brought about the revolution in apologetics mentioned 
in the last lecture. It was inevitable that the poverty 
of Locke’s sensationalism should manifest itself and 
lead to a reaction, as, indeed, was the case even in the 
last century, when the Scotch philosophy raised its pro- 
test against the prevailing doctrines. There can be no 
question also that the revival of evangelical religion 
had a most important effect by turning men’s thoughts 
to the revelation of God’s presence and living power 
in the experience of the religious life. Scarcely less 
powerful has been the influence of pantheism and ag- 
nosticism, which have made the deistic position unten- 
able, and, while utterly antagonistic to the theistie phi- 
losophy in their essential features, have taught it many 
of those useful lessons lawfully to be learned even from 
an enemy.” Nor is it to be forgotten that physical 
science has furnished philosophy with better methods 
and truer tests.”° 

Under the guidance of these influences the philos- 
ophy of religion has reached, in our age, a far truer and 
more satisfactory conception of God than that of the 
old orthodoxy or the deistic view with which it is so 
closely allied. It rejects the narrowness and error of 
the old view, and it is also guarded against the no less 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 47 


narrow and erroneous views of the modern pantheistic, 
agnostic, and materialistic systems, each of which em- 
phasizes a single aspect of truth so exclusively as to 
run it into radical error. 

What the true conception is, has been already in 
part implied. The God of theism is—to use the noble 
and never-to-be-forgotten definition of the Assembly’s 
Catechism—“ a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchange- 
able in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, good- 
ness, and truth.’ But he is this, not as a mere notion 
of the understanding, but as the Reality of realities, the 
Fact of facts. He is the personal God, self-conscious, 
self-determining, like ourselves in all the elements 
which constitute personality, wholly distinct from his 
creatures, and independent of them, whether those 
creatures be personal, merely sentient, or material. 
Te is the self-moved Deviser and Creator of all things. 
He alone is eternal, and the universe, his workmanship, 
has its origin with and in time. His preserving activ- 
ity and providential government are those of a personal 
Ruler who stands above and separate from the world. 
The transcendence and personality of God, which 
constitute the elements of truth in deism, we jealously 
maintain in the face of all pantheistic and agnostic 
denials. 

But God, according to the theistic conception, is not 
only transcendent; he is also immanent. Nature and 
man have their own substantial being, but they have it 
only through their dependence upon God. They are 
realities, but only through their subordination to him 
who, in the supreme and unique sense, is the Reality. 

The machine of nature does its work through the 
constant influx and activity of the divine energy. The 


48 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


physical forces are only second causes, through which 
the First Cause—alone cause in the full sense of the 
term—operates. God is the hidden but ever-active 
Ground of vegetable and animal life. The world is but 
the veil through which may be seen, shaded, but un- 
concealed, the lineaments of God. It is the hiero- 
glyphic in which his character may be read. 

God is the source of physical, intellectual, moral, and 
spiritual life in man. He is the constant, clear-shining 
Light of the human reason. The enormous superiority 
of the human to the brute intellect is due to this par- 
ticipation in the activity of the supreme Reason.” The 
human will in its freedom, which is a true cause as the 
forces of nature are not, is this only in virtue of its 
abiding dependence upon the divine Will. Through 
conscience this holy Will, moment by moment, pro- 
claims the eternal law of right, and lays’ obligation 
upon the soul of man. In his frown is punishment; 
in his favor is life. He makes the soul the temple of 
his indwelling. In the experience of the religious life 
the personal God meets us as persons, and the human 
spirit enjoys communion with the infinite Spirit in 
whose image it was created. 

In all this relation of God to men there is a constant 
self-manifestation and self-communication on his part. 
We call it truly revelation. The distinction between 
the natural and the supernatural, or Christian, revela- 
tions is an old one. The theistic philosophy of religion 
in its best modern form has wisely revived this distinc- 
tion, and clearing the term natural revelation of its 
deistical associations, applies it to the relation in which 
God stands to all his children. It expresses, as no 
other term can do, the abiding presence, self-disclosure, 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 49 


and self-bestowing love of the Infinite. It brings the 
philosophy of religion into line with the teachings of 
the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Romans (i. 19, 20), 
when he says, speaking of the heathen: ‘ Because that 
which may be known of God is manifest in them; for 
God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things 
of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
being perceived through the things that are made, even 
his everlasting power and divinity.” ” 

But what of the proofs of this conception of God ? 
How shall we know that the facts which religion pos- 
tulates have reality and objective validity ? 

It is here that the advance in the views and methods 
of the philosophy of religion is most marked. Theold 
notion of an innate idea of God no longer holds water. 
The deistic proof of a Primum Movens has become in- 
adequate. The modern scientific spirit calls for a proof 
which shall satisfy the requirements of the scientific 
method, and the modern philosophy of religion does 
not fear to give it. It boldly takes its stand upon the 
facts of a universal religious experience, and under- 
takes the task of proving that this experience can be 
explained only upon the assumption that it is what it 
purports to be, namely, a reality, involving the actual 
existence and present power of God. 

The process of verification carries us back to the ele- 
ments of all experience, and to the problem of knowl- 
edge. What are the constants in the ever-varying cur- 
rent of iuman consciousness? How are these constants 
to be interpreted ? What are the elements which the 
mind itself furnishes to knowledge? What elements 
have an objective origin ? | 

The most fruitful modern discussions of the subject 

4 


50 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


date from the time of Kant.” Let us take our starting- 
point from him. It is well to do so, for he gives the 
best and fullest refut«cion of the old deism, while we 
find in him the essential elements of both idealistic 
pantheism and agnosticism, so that the analysis and 
correction of his doctrine afford the best refutation of 
these philosophies. The aim of the great philosopher 
of Kénigsberg was to analyze experience and distin- 
guish its @ priort factors from the d@ posteriort. The 
raw material of experience consists of sensations which 
come to the mind from without. But the mind is not 
passive in the process of knowledge; it not only re- 
ceives but gives, and the knowledge is the result of the 
synthesis of both factors, the subjective and the objec- 
tive. Of the subjective Kant distinguishes the intui- 
tions of time and space; the categories of the under- 
standing, quantity, quality, relation, modality, with 
their subdivisions; and the three ideas of reason—the 
soul, the world, and God. 

Within the framework of these @ priore forms the 
raw material of sensation appears in the guise of ration- 
al and ordered experience or knowledge. But the forms 
themselves are purely subjective; they have no objec- 
tive validity. There is a “thing in itself” (Ding an 
sich), which is the objective cause of sensation, but we 
do not and cannot know what it is. By our mental 
constitution we are obliged to think of it under the @ 
priori forms, but we have no right to assume that the 
reality exists under these forms. They are a necessity 
of thought, but this fact does not vouch for their ob- 
jective existence. As the mirrored sides of the kaleido- 
scope determine the ordered and beautiful figures as- 
sumed by the colored bits of glass, the mind determines 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. dL 


the forms assumed in experience by the thing in itself ; 
with the exception that in the latter case we must as- 
sume no knowledge of the bits of glass except as the 
unknown substratum of the images which appear. Thus 
we are shut close within the limits of experience, 
knowing that there is a region beyond, but doomed to 
be forever ignorant of its nature. Kant himself de- 
scribes in striking language the narrow sphere of 
knowledge. After completing his investigation of the 
understanding, he says: “We have now not only 
traversed the country of the pure understanding and 
carefully examined every part thereof, but we have 
also surveyed it and assigned to everything its place 
upon it. But this country is an island, and shut up by 
nature itself within unchangeable barriers. It is the 
country of truth (a charming name!), surrounded by a 
broad and stormy ocean, the proper place of illusion, 
where many a fog-bank and many a deliquescent ice- 
berg give the false promise of new countries, and while 
they ceaselessly deceive the mariners ambitious of dis- 
coveries with empty hopes, they involve them in ad- 
ventures which can never be abandoned and yet never 
concluded.” * 

The three ideas of reason stand at an even further 
remove from reality than the categories of the wn- 
derstanding and the intuitions of sense. Their ne- 
cessity of thought is no guarantee for their objective 
truth. Their place in thought is only regulative and 
not constitutive. Their value lies in the fact that they 
enable us to unify our knowledge and reduce it to or- 
der and system. We cannot indeed refrain from at- 
tributing to them in our thought a substantial and ob- 
jective existence. But this is—to use Kant’s own illus- 


52 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tration—a “natural illusion” like that which makes us 
see the objects reflected in a mirror as though they were 
in the space behind it. The affirmers and the deniers 
of the existence of the soul, the world, and God, are alike 
mistaken. They are like combatants who fence with 
their own shadows. Their sharpest thrusts are in vain, 
for there is nothing to wound. They may fight ever so 
bravely, but the shadows which they cut to pieces in- 
stantly come together again, like the heroes in Walhal- 
Ja, and the bloodless battle goes on indefinitely.** With 
caustic wit the great agnostic characterizes his own 
philosophy and the attempts of his fellow-philosophers 
to soar into the transcendent region of metaphysics: 
“We have found that, although we had purposed to 
build for ourselves a tower which should reach to heav- 
en, the supply of materials sufficed merely for a habita- 
tion which was spacious enough for all terrestrial pur- 
poses, and high enough to enable us to survey the level 
plain of experience, but that the bold undertaking de- 
signed necessarily failed for want of materials—not to 
mention the confusion of tongues, which gave rise to 
endless disputes among the laborers on the plan of the 
edifice, and at last scattered them over all the world, 
each to erect a separate building for himself, according 
to his own plans and his own inclinations.” *° 

In consistency with his theory, Kant repudiates the 
traditional arguments for the existence of God. The 
ontological, with its inference from the idea of the most 
perfect Being to his reality, is based upon the delusion 
that the ideas of reason represent the objective truth of 
things. The cosmological and teleological arguments 
presuppose the ontological, and of themselves do not 
carry us beyond the charmed circle of finite experience. 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. Dd 


Only at one point does Kant endeavor to break through 
to an objective Reality which can afford the basis for 
religious truth. It is in the sphere of man’s moral nat- 
ure. The truth which the pure reason cannot attain, 
is to be accepted as the postulate of the practical reason. 
The latter bases its procedure upon the assumption of 
the reality of three great facts—God, freedom, and im- 
mortality. That Kant by the acceptance of these facts 
as postulates of the practical reason, meant to vouch 
for their absolute reality and thus to retract the asser- 
tions he makes in dealing with the pure reason, cannot 
be truthfully affirmed. {lis aim was to find a working 
basis for morals and religion rather than to give them a 
speculative grounding. Let men live and act as if God, 
freedom, and immortality were realities ; for the rest, let 
them recognize their limitations. A modern philoso- 
pher has said, ‘“ You cannot find a verification of the 
idea of God or duty ; you can only make it.” *" A far 
greater than he declared,“ If any man willeth to do the 
will of God, he shall know of the doctrine” (John vii. 
17). Probably Kant would not have agreed altogether 
with either; his view was that these ideas must always 
remain unverified. If he was inconsistent, it was a no- 
ble inconsistency, which raises his agnosticism far above 
the modern imitations of it. 

But in truth Kant was not altogether inconsistent. 
Ile was one of those great thinkers who stand between 
two ages, summing up the one and inaugurating the 
other. His philosophy was two-sided and capable of 
two interpretations. It is like the drawing of a gem 
which we may see at will in relief or depressed, as a 
cameo or an intaglio. Looking at it in one way, we 
find in it only the old rationalism stated in its logical 


54 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


consequences. For years philosophers and theologians 
had been teaching, to all intents and purposes, that 
God is a mere notion of the intellect, and yet insisting 
that in the sphere of morals and religion men should 
act as if this notion were a reality. Kant said it out 
distinctly and explicitly. But there is another way of 
looking at his philosophy. Plainly to state the logical 
implications of the old rationalism was to furnish its 
reductio ad absurdum. The circle had been traversed 
to the opposite pole. The consequences of the old ra- 
tionalism were the foundations of the new idealism. If 
the mind is the author of the idea of God, as well as 
of the ideas of the world and of self, and if the thing 
in itself is but the unknown substratum of experience, 
why not take one step more, and turning the thing in 
itself into a notion, make all subjective? Or if such a 
subjective idealism prove unsatisfactory, why not deify 
the notion and find in an absolute Idea the Ground and 
Reality of all things ? 

Kant’s position was, as the name he gave his philo- 
sophy implies, critical. But criticism does not give us 
truth ; it only prepares the way for it. The ery of the 
philosophers in our age is “ Back to Kant!” But the 
reason for returning to him is, not that we may adopt 
his system, framing some kind of “ Neo-Kantianism,” 
but that we may correct the defects and extravagances 
of the earlier and later systems by his criticism. The 
value of his philosophy does not lie in the solution he 
gave—or attempted to give—to the problem of knowl- 
edge, but in his clear statement of the problem, which 
makes it possible to secure its solution by the applica- 
tion of a better method. From the first there has been 
one fatal defect in Kant’s philosophy ; it cut the bond 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. D5 


between subjective and objective knowledge. By its 
assertion that the forms and ideas of the mind, though 
necessary to thought, have no corresponding external 
reality, it opened the way on the one hand for the return 
to the scepticism of Hume, which reappears, though in 
a somewhat different dress, in our modern agnosticism ; 
and on the other, for the advance to idealistic panthe- 
ism. 

It is not my purpose at this time to show how the 
critical philosophy of Kant developed into the systems 
of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, each representing a 
phase of truth, but all essentially pantheistic. I wish 
only to call attention to the fact that Kant, when his 
fundamental error is corrected, gives us the key to the 
true solution of the problem of knowledge. The prin- 
ciple which, consistently applied, remedies the defect of 
the Kantian philosophy is, that what is necessary to 
thought has objective, as well as subjective, validity. 
Or, to state the same principle in familiar words, that 
the forms of thought are the forms of things. The 
contributions which thought makes to knowledge cor- 
respond to the reality of things. To suppose that there 
is a yawning and impassable gulf between the mind and 
the objective world is suicidal. Nothing can possess 
a higher validity than that which is a necessity of 
thought. If this fails us, then all fails us, and thought 
itself crumbles into ruins. It is indeed true that we 
know things in their relation to ourselves, and do not 
know them apart from this relation; but this fact, in- 
stead of invalidating our knowledge, is the sole condi- 
tion of it. We must know things under the limitations 
of our faculties, and therefore we know them only 
partially; but there is no reason to believe that we 


56 HEVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


know them otherwise than truly. There is everything 
to confirm the conviction of the unsophisticated mind, 
that the subjective and the objective are parts of the 
same system, organically related and mutually corre- 
spondent. We must perceive-things in time and space, 
and this is evidence to us that time and space are real 
relations existing in and between things. We must 
know our sensations in the framework sh the catego- 
ries, and this is proof that the categories are the law of 
the things which give rise to the sensations. 

So with regard to the ideas of reason, with which we 
are here particularly concerned; they are necessary to 
thought, and therefore we conclude that they are true, 
that is, that they correspond to the objective real- 
ity. Self, the world, and God, are not mere subjective 
forms, but objective facts; and we know that this is 
the case, because the ideas are universal and necessary 
to thought. If such necessities of thought deceive us, 
we have no criterion of truth, but fall a prey to uni- 
versal scepticism. Instead of supposing, with IXant, a 
vague spectral “thing in itself”’ which the mind is 
obliged to think of as existing, though ignorant of its 
nature, while the ideas of reason, God, the world and 
self, are merely mental forms with no corresponding 
objective reality—ainstead of such an unsatisfactory as- 
sumption, we find in God, the world, and self, the real 
nature of the “thing in itself,” the grounds and causes 
of our mental Sie 

But let us look more carefully at these mM 
guaranteed to us by the reason. How are the existence 
and necessary force of these ideas to be explained ? 
When we analyze consciousness, we find that God, the 
world, and self, are necessary data of it. The larger 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. aire 


portion of the contents of consciousness, if we pass by 
the mere forms of thought and look at its materials, is 
accidental or contingent; we can conceive it as non- 
existent; it comes and goes. But the three facts of 
which I have been speaking remain constant, immu- 
table, and irremovable, defying all attempts to dislodge 
them or think them away. They are the fixed stars in 
our firmament of thought. How shall we explain the 
fact? How shall we verify our certainty of the cor- 
responding objective reality? The answer is simple: 
these factors of consciousness are necessary to thought, 
because in all our conscious experience we come into 
contact with the realities to which they correspond and 
which are the cause of the ideas. We have constant 
experimental knowledge of self, the world, and God. 
It is the constant shining light of their manifestation 
which gives to the ideas their necessity. 

The self reveals itself through all the conscious activ- 
ities of the mind, in its thinking, willing, and feeling. 
Descartes founded his philosophy upon the inexpugna- 
ble certainty of our own existence— “ Cogito, ergo 
sum.” ** Locke declared that we have the knowledge of 
our own existence by “intuition.” The highest test of 
knowledge in the common mind is to be as sure of a 
thing as we are of our own existence. Consciousness 
becomes self-consciousness when we clearly distinguish 
the subject from the object, the self from the not-self, 
and realize in all our mental ongoings the presence and 
manifestation of the single, indivisible ego, the person- 
ality, of which we predicate all the mind’s acts. Our 
knowledge is an experimental knowledge. Indeed, 
just in this consists the self-consciousness of man, which 
differences him from the brute, which has mere con- 


58 HVIDENCE OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


sciousness withont self-consciousness. At first the infant 
does not distinguish itself from the not-self. To it 
subject and object are mingled in one undifferentiated 
complex. Then, as the process of development goes on, 
the two begin to be distinguished and the ego rises 
above the horizon of consciousness. 


‘*The baby, new to earth and sky, 
What time his tender palm is pressed 
Against the circle of the breast, 
Has never thought that ‘this is I:° 


** But as he grows he gathers much, 
And learns the use of ‘I’ and ‘me,’ 
And finds ‘I am not what I see, 

And other than the things I touch :’ 


“‘So rounds he to a separate mind 
From whence clear memory may begin, 
As through the frame that binds him in 
His isolation grows defined.” * 


Self-consciousness dawns when he has experience of 
himself and stands forth a person, when as subject he 
knows himself as object, and brings together subject and 
object into unity. I know myself, and know that I am 
myself; and this means that I know myself as revealed 
in my thoughts, and feelings, and volitions, and know 
that I am the subject thus revealed. 

In a similar way we know the world—not indeed 
with the same immediateness with which we know our- 
selves, but none the less truly—through the effects it 
produces in our consciousness. The thing in itself is 
known through the phenomena, which do not hide it, 
but, on the contrary, reveal it. We do not, it is true, 
ever get behind the phenomena and behold the naked 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS, Do 


cause in its independence. The thought of doing so 
involves the absurdity of supposing we could know 
things apart from our faculty of knowledge; for the 
phenomenon is the thing in itself as we know it. The 
faculty of knowledge would commit suicide if it at- 
tempted to violate its own law. But there is not the 
slightest reason for calling in question the accuracy of 
its results. The several classes of sensations are each 
a revelation of the nature of the world in its material 
and physical attributes. The laws, relations, order, and 
beauty which we discover in them are a revelation of 
the ideal side of the world to our reason. Our belief 
in the accuracy of our knowledge of the world is not 
invalidated by the facts brought to light by physical 
science touching the difference between the causes af- 
fecting the end-organs of sense and the result in con- 
sciousness. It is true that sight is totally different 
from the cause of sight, namely, the vibrations of the 
ether, and sound from the movements of the atmos- 
phere which give rise to it. But these differences have 
to do, not with the passage from phenomena to their 
cause, but with the interpretation of one class of phe- 
nomena in terms of another. The man of science does 
not get behind knowledge when he discovers that the 
cause of the sensation of heat is the motion of the 
particles of a material substance ; this motion and these 
particles are just as much sensations as the heat itself, 
and the knowledge of the one is just as certain (and just 
as uncertain) as the knowledge of the other. The no- 
tion that the subjectivity of knowledge is proved in this 
way is so preposterous that one wonders it could be en- 
tertained for a moment by any thoughtful mind. 

In this connection we may speak of our knowledge 


60 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


of our fellow-men, which stands midway between our 
knowledge of ourselves and our knowledge of the 
world, and is dependent upon both. Certain sensations 
belonging to the spheres of sight, hearing, and touch, 
are hieroglyphics from which we read off, in the light 
of our self-knowledge, the manifestation to ourselves 
of other self-conscious spirits. 

We are thus prepared to understand our knowledge 
of God. We know him through his self-revelations. 
It is an experimental knowledge. That which may be 
known of God is manifest in us; for God manifests it 
to us. 

This brings us to the arguments for the divine exist- 
ence. If they have been discredited in the old de- 
istic form, it has been only that they might be urged 
with new power and clearness in the new and better 
form. We know God through his manifestations of 
himself. Accordingly, each form of his self-revelation 
furnishes us with a proof of his existence. If I would 
prove the existence of the world to one whose mind has 
been disturbed by the philosophy of the subjective ideal- 
ist, my best method will beto bring before him each of 
the ways in which the world manifests itself to our 
sense and reason, and to show him that the facts can 
be explained only upon one assumption, namely, that 
there isa world. Through each of these channels the 
world enters my experience and reveals itself to me. 
So, to prove the divine existence, I must present the 
different methods of God’s manifestation and show 
that they can be explained only upon the assumption 
that God exists. 

Let it be borne in mind that the proof is not of the 
kind that proceeds from step to step of a train of 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 61 


reasoning. Such argumentation belongs to notions 
rather than to facts. Tere lay the error of the old 
rationalism, signalized by the declaration of Locke, 
that we know the existence of God by demonstration. 
As Rickert says, 


‘¢ Wer Gott nicht fiihlt in sich und allen Lebenskreisen, 
Dem werdet ihr Ihn nicht beweisen mit Beweisen.” 


God is from the first present in my experience, and my - 
proof is simply an analysis of my experience and a 
verification of it. 

Let us look at the arguments. 

The first is the ontological. It has had its full share 
of abuse, but it has persisted in spite of it. Let it be 
rightly stated, and every true theologian and philoso- 
pher must accept it. The idea of the Absolute is a ne- 
cessity of thought, and therefore a revelation of the ex- 
istence of the Absolute—that is the simple argument ; 
not the idea of God with its full theistic contents, 
but the idea of the Absolute—the formal idea, which 
tells us that there is an infinite Being, but does not tell 
us what that Being is. We are so constituted that we 
must think of something as eternal, unchangeable, su- 
perior to all limitations of space, capable of existing out 
of relation to all other beings and though no other be- 
ings should exist ; in a word, some self-existent Being. 
This much even the agnostic admits, as he admits also 
the force of the cosmological argument. Herbert Spen- 
cer says: “ Though the Absolute cannot in any man- 
ner or degree be known in the strict sense of knowing, 
yet we find that its positive existence is a necessary 
datum of consciousness; that so long as consciousness 
continues we cannot for an instant rid it of this da- 


62 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tum ; and that thus the belief which this datum consti- 
tutes has a higher warrant than any other whatever.” ” 
To doubt the force and objective validity of this idea 
would be to doubt everything. This “intellectual point 
of which we cannot get rid, but which we continue to 
think in the very attempt to think away,” * cannot be 
without a corresponding reality. Professor Flint does 
not overstate the truth when he declares, “ If, although 
I am constrained to conclude that there is an infinite 
and eternal Being, I may reject the conclusion on the 
supposition that reason is untrustworthy, I am clear- 
ly bound in self-consistency to set aside the testimony 
of my senses also by the assumption that they are habit- 
ually delusive.” ** The only explanation of the neces- 
; sary idea of the Absolute is the actual existence of 


“| the Absolute. It is God himself who has set eternity 


in our heart (Eccles. 111.11). Reason falls into ruins if 
this fundamental idea is discredited. This form of 
thought, which “has a higher warrant than any other 
whatever,” must reveal to us the basal form of Reality. 

Next comes the cosmological argument. God re- 
veals himself through the material and physical world, 
as its First Cause, Ground, Life, and Governor. In 
presenting this proof, we do not leave the ontological 
behind us, but presuppose its presence and force. None 
of the arguments for the divine existence are to be taken 
separately ; together they form an organism of evi- 
dence. But undoubtedly the cosmological argument 
furnishes its own independent quota of proof. There 
is no evading the principle of causality ; it is necessary 
to thought and must be alaw to things. And yet there 
are no true causes in the world ; it is the region of ef- 
fects ; its apparent causes, when closely scrutinized, all 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 63 


become effects. We must look deeper for our cause ; 
and in our search we come to God. Only the Absolute 
can be the cause we seek. In every second cause the 
First Cause makes its presence known to us. Kant 
asserts that causality is a category of the understanding 
and applies only to phenomena. Is not the fact just 
the converse? Is it not rather, in the truest and 
strictest sense, a category of the reason and applicable 
in the completeness of the idea only to the noumenon, 
the thing in itself, that is, to the Absolute ? Kant re- 
peatedly repudiates his own principles and attributes 
causation to the thing in itself. The English agnostics 
speak without hesitation of the “ Absolute Cause.” 
Perhaps we may even go further in our use of the 
cosmological argument, and infer something as to the 
nature of God besides mere causation. Our primitive 
knowledge of cause comes from ourselves. In our con- 
scious and free activities we set ourselves to change 
and new-mould ourselves and the non-ego. We do this 
through our wills. We think of the changes in the ma- 
terial world as due to causes because we know ourselves 
as causes. But, as we have seen, material causes are 
only effects. The natural sequences reveal no true 
cause when we look at them in themselves. The world 
cannot be its own cause. If, then, will is the only true 
cause of which we have knowledge, is it too much to 
infer that the true cause of all things is an infinite Will ? 
The teleological argument is based upon the divine 
self-revelation in the ideal side of the world. The uni- 
verse is not mere brute matter and energy ; it is in- 
stinct with reason. As we find in it a transcript of our 
own reason, so we are brought into contact with an ab- 
solute Reason. The order, harmony, and beauty of the 


64 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


world, the laws which govern the activities of matter 
and energy, the mathematical relations existing between 
things, are all manifestations, not only of a creative 
Reason which presided at the beginning of things, but 
also of a Wisdom constantly energizing in the world. 
It is an ordered unity, a universe, a cosmos, and not a 
chaos. As we look upon it, material things and physi- 
cal forces seem almost to shrivel and disappear in the 
presence of omnipresent and universally active thought. 
The material is but the diaphanous veil that reveals 
rather than hides the divine Reason. Just as we know 
the thought of our fellow-men, whose spirits are per- 
ceived by no direct intuition, through the forms and 
motions of material things, which are signs to us of the 
movement of the invisible intellect, and convey its mes- 
sage to us ; so we know the thought of God through the 
material things which he has made and is constantly 
disposing according to his will. The heavens declare 
the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his han- 
diwork. 

The argument from evidences of design is but a sub- 
ordinate form of this great argument from manifested 
Reason. The natural history of the world is the un- 
folding of adivine plan. If the theory of evolution be 
true—as it seems likely that it is, at least in its great 
outlines—then in the long procession of inorganic and 
living forms, from the primitive atoms to the begin- 
nings of life, and from the protozoon to man, we have 
an evidence of a superintending Wisdom so amazing 
that human thought reels when it contemplates it, and 
the old design argument, which confined itself to the 
presentation of isolated instances of adaptation in nat- 
ure, becomes a tallow candle in the presence of the 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 65 


sun. Then when we look at human history, seeing its 
long, steady progress, the unceasing march upward, the 
direction to a far-off moral goal, the wonder heightens 
and we hide our faces before the glory of the all-wise 
God. 

God’s self-revelation in the constitution and opera- 
tions of the human soul gives us the psychological argu- 
ment. What isman? What is this self-conscious, self- 
determining personality, this thinking, feeling, willing 
essence? Can it be the creation of nature? No, for it 
is the lord of nature. Yet itis not eternal and self-ex- 
istent; it has had a beginning, though it has a present- 
iment that it will have no end. If Reason alone will 
account for reason in nature, @ fortior? Reason alone 
will account for human reason, the soul of man. Per- 
sonality, freedom, conscience, love, intellect—these are 
themselves almost divine, and they are the pledge that 
there isa Being truly divine, from whom they spring. 
Natural religion teaches the doctrine of the divine im- 
age in man, and the redemptive revelation does no more 
in this respect than confirm its truth. 

Nor must we stop short with the inference from the 
constitution of the human soul to its divine Creator ; 
there is in us a present revelation of the living God. 
Our reason is not an independent power; there is a 
true sense—though not the pantheistic—in which we 
must declare it to be a function of a higher Reason. 
God is the Light of all our intellectual, moral, and spirit- 
ual seeing. Our rational intuitions, upon the condition 
of which alone rational thought is possible, are depen- 
dent upon the constant presence and energizing of the 
divine Reason. 

Our moral nature and the operations of conscience are 

5 


66 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


a still higher revelation of God, and furnish us with 
what is called the moral argument. We are free, able 
to choose our ends, yet under obligation, owing alle- 
giance to law, which bids us choose not as we please but 
asis right. This is to be moral beings, and this is the 
proof that our Creator is a moral being, free yet under 
obligation, not to some power outside of himself but to 
his own holy nature. Moreover, conscience is the ever- 
present and ever-active witness to the sanctity of the 
moral law; not itself the voice of God, but the channel 
through which the voice of God comes to us. Con- 
science is the revelation of a holy Will, a righteous 
Person laying his claims upon us and demanding our 
obedience. The utilitarian theory of morals, alike in 
its old form which explains our moral nature as the re- 
sult of education and its later evolutionary form which 
accounts for it through inherited habit, utterly fails to 
furnish a satisfactory explanation of the sanctity of duty 
and the authority it carries with it. 

The moral argument is commonly stated in another 
form also, in which the teleological proof is combined 
with the moral. The active presence of the moral law 
in the world is evidenced by the constitution of society, 
its institutions and customs, the course of human his- 
tory, and the progress of the race. The ‘‘ Power not 
ourselves that makes for righteousness” is the holy 
God. 

And so the moral argument merges into the re- 
ligious, which is really not a different proof but an- 
other aspect of the same. In the religious life God re- 
veals himself as a Person, holding fellowship with us as 
persons. In the recesses of a quiet spirit the Divine 
and the human meet in blessed communion. Here is 


THEISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS. 67 


the sanctuary where the experience of God is consum- 
mated and the proof of his existence attains its strong. 
est and most convincing form. Of the reality of such 
communion every soul knows something. I should not 
except even the avowed atheist, for I doubt not that God 
enters even into his soul, though he may put a false 
construction upon the facts. When I see the atheist 
himself trying to find some substitute for the theist’s 
God, that he may worship it—some ideal, some ab- 
straction of humanity, some personification of nature or 
reason, I know the meaning; the God he will not rec- 
ognize is there, and in his inmost heart he knows it.™ 

We are thus brought back to the point from which 
we started, the higher view of God’s nature and relation 
to the world and man which has been brought to light 
by the modern philosophy of religion. In a word, it 
is the view of a God personal and transcendent, yet al- 
ways and everywhere present and active, a God who is 
constantly revealing himself through his works and to 
his intelligent creatures, a God with whom we are in 
constant contact in our experience. It is the true the- 
istic conception of God, guarded on both sides, against 
the errors of deism and the errors of pantheism, agnos- 
ticism, and materialism. 

In this experience of God every soul of man has a 
part. He is not far from every one of us; in him we 
live and move and have our being. It is possible for 
every soul, however degraded, however ignorant and 
humble, to feel after him and find him (Acts xvii. 27, 
28). I do not claim that all men have an adequate 
knowledge of him. The account that has been given 
of him in this lecture is that which is attained by the 
philosophy of religion in its highest exercise under 


68 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the full light and influence of Christianity. Under the 
power of sin the souls of men have been darkened. All 
have access to the facts that have been presented here, 
but the vast majority of men are quite incapable of 
putting our interpretation upon them. From the height 
which we are privileged to reach the scale stretches 
down through every grade-of knowledge to the lowest 
forms of heathenism. Yet the knowledge of God is 
common knowledge. However imperfectly and per- 
vertedly men may hold it and express it, all have it, so 
that when the higher Christian truth comes to a soul, 
it does not come to one ignorant of God, but to one 
that from its earliest days has felt his presence and 
power. 


LECTURE III. 
PHILOSOPHICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS—ANTHROPOLOGICAL. 


THERE is a philosophy of man which is essentially 
connected with the theistic philosophy of God. Like 
the latter, it forms a necessary presupposition of the 
evidence of Christian experience. Here also we have 
reason to rejoice that the best thought of our age has 
reached such true and satisfactory results. 

The rationalistic movement of the last century be- 
gan with the exaltation of man. Its watchword was 
human reason. Man was made the measure of all 
things. It was claimed that the human intellect is 
capable of solving, through its own resources, all the 
problems of the universe, and of sitting in judgment 
upon all professed revelations. The age never tired of 
singing the praises of man, of his nobility, his god- 
likeness, his high destination. As the dignity of the 
human intellect was exalted, so that of the human will. 
The tendency was to make light of sin and to magnify 
the power of man to work out his own salvation. Dut 
this view of man contained the seeds of its own de- 
struction. As the deistic rationalism, when it worked 
itself out to its logical consequences, retired God from 
the universe, so it lowered man to the level of nature. 
This is the tendency we see in the philosophy of 
Locke, which was pre-eminently the philosophy of 
rationalism—a tendency, it is true, that is still strng- 


70 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


gling with the higher view, but not without suggestive 
intimations of an principles that were to find full ex- 
pression, on the one hand, in the materialism of the 
Frenchmen Condillac, Helvetius, Diderot, and D’Hol- 
bach, and, on the other hand, in the scepticism of Hume. 
In all probability Locke, in spite of his polemic against 
innate ideas, was not a sensationalist pure and simple, 
but the whole drift of his system was in the direction of 
a thorough-going application of the maxim: ‘ Wihal est 
in intellectu, quod non prius fuerit in sensu.” The 
introduction to his famous Essay concerning Human 
Understanding begins with the words: “ Since it is 
the understanding that sets man above the rest of 
sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and 
dominion which he has over them, it is certainly a 
subject even for its nobleness, worth our labor to en- 
quire into.”* Yet it cannot be denied that at most of 
the points where the great philosopher had the opportu- 
nity to show the superiority of man, not only in de- 
gree but in kind, to the lower orders i being, he failed 
to do so. It is phate cernne of the whole trend of his 
thought that he suggests the Pose ay of the ma- 
teriality of the soul mad denies man’s natural immor- 
tality.’ 

The seeds, whose sowing is so evident in the days of 
the deistic rationalism, have attained abundant fruitage 
in our modern materialism and agnosticism. In our own 
‘day we have seen these systems directing their power- 
ful enginery of philosophical tani against every 
view of man which would make him different in kind 
from the brute. Moreover, even Christian thought 
has been largely leavened by the rationalistic view of 
man. This was especially the case during the earlier 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. él 


part of the present century, when the influence of 
Locke was still predominant in philosophy. 

The reaction in favor of the truer and higher view 
of man, which has come at length, has been due in part 
to the influences mentioned in the previous lectures as 
contributing to the better method in apologetics and 
the truer conception of God’s nature and relation to the 
world and men. But only in part. Though pantheism 
has done something to counteract the materialistic view 
of man, it has failed to furnish us with any satisfactory 
substitute for it. Physical science has, to far too great 
an extent, given aid and comfort to those who would 
obliterate the distinction between man and _ nature. 
- Agnosticism is in no essential respect different in its 
doctrine of man from the old materialistic sensational- 
ism. Infidelity in its later forms joins hands with the 
old deism in uncompromising opposition to the theistic 
doctrine of man—a doctrine rightly called theistic, 
since we meet it nowhere except in connection with the 
theistic conception of God. 

In the present lecture let us look somewhat closely 
at the elements of this doctrine of man which form 
the anthropological postulates of the evidence of Chris- 
tian experience. 

I. The theistic philosophy of man asserts that he is 
a being allied in his nature and capacities to God. In 
order to classify him aright, we must place him in the 
same category with the great Being revealed to us 
through nature as the Creator, Ruler, and End of 
nature. Man is spirit. He bears in his being the im- 
age of God. He is in finiteness what God is in infini- 
tude. As it is true that we can. know God only through 
man, it is equally true that we can know man only 


72 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


through God. The ideas of God and man are correla- 
tive. As every true conception of God must be in a 
sense anthropomorphic, so every true conception of 
man must be in a sense theomorphic. And as man is a 
being made like God, so he is a being made for God. 
His final cause is found not in nature or in himself, 
but in his Maker. He is capable of communion with 
God. He is bound to God by the moral law and con- 
science. Thus, though he is finite, yet through his con- 
nection with God he has an infinite value; and even 
philosophy, apart from special revelation, gives us in- 
timations that though he has his origin and earthly 
existence in time, he may participate in the divine 
eternity. 

The philosophy of theism, therefore, asserts the 
intrinsic and absolute superiority of man to nature. 
Man is, indeed, in a true sense, a part of nature, if 
in nature we include all created and finite beings. 
The poverty and partial ambiguity of our language 
embarrass us here. Jn common usage the term nature 
has not the same breadth when used in antithesis to 
man as when opposed to the Supernatural. I doubt 
whether anything is gained by the attempt to establish 
a single consistent use of the word. Man is in nature, 
so far as he is a created and finite being, and forms a 
part of the sensible order of things; he is above nature, 
so far as he possesses qualities denied to all other 
created beings connected with the sensible order of 
things. Yet he is not supernatural in the common 
meaning of that word—that is, he is neither divine nor 
disconnected from the sensible order of things.* 

Man is also a part of nature in the sense that he is 
implicated with nature through his bodily organism, 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 73 


and that the world of nature is the theatre of his 
activities. | 

But the distinctive part of man, that which gives 
him his peculiar quality as human, is wholly different 
from anything which nature in the lower meaning of 
the term can show. The difference is not merely one 
of degree, it is one of kind. The human spirit, with 
its godlike nature and. powers, is a form of existence 
absolutely diverse from anything else in the world. 
When it appears in the history of our globe, it is as 
something entirely new and unique. The chasm be- 
tween the highest animal and the lowest man is to-day, 
as it always has been, impassable. 

The non-theistie philosophies of our times take their 
stand in determined and violent resistance to every 
such view of man. From the nature of the case they 
cannot do otherwise. Denying, as they do, the exist- 
ence of a personal God, they are compelled to deny the 
existence of aman made in his image, and for com- 
munion with him. This is especially the case with 
materialism and agnosticism. The one asserts that the 
ultimate cause of all things is matter and energy ; the 
other, that it is the unknown Power behind phenomena, 
with which philosophy has nothing to do beyond the 
assertion of its existence. Both are compelled to ex- 
plain man in terms of matter, force, and motion. In 
other words, he is a purely natural product, and a 
purely natural being, whose superiority to the animal 
consists only in degree. 

The strength of the present attack upon what I have 
called the theistic conception of man, is largely due to 
the scientific basis which materialism and agnosticism 
claim to derive from the theory of evolution, a claim 


74 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


which is, unfortunately, widely conceded to them by 
the unthinking. Of the value of the conception of 
evolution in science and philosophy, as well as in the- 
ology, it is needless for me to speak ; it is the posses- 
sion of the theist quite as much as of his opponents. 
Nor is it needful at this late day for the theologian to 
turn aside to concede with cheerful alacrity the great 
importance and probable truth—within such limits as 
science itself prescribes to all its working hypotheses— 
of that scientific theory which now commonly bears 
the name of evolution, the Darwinian doctrine of the 
derivation of species by descent through the operation 
of natural selection and its kindred laws. This doc- 
trine has proved its value by the immense impulse it 
has given to science and the light it has thrown upon 
extensive ranges of facts not previously understood. 
But the evolution taught by the materialistic and ag- 
nostic philosophies—as in the so-called evolutionary 
philosophy of Herbert Spencer—is in no sense scienti- 
fic, and cannot be too sharply distinguished from the 
scientific theory in its legitimate use. It is a mere 
philosophical speculation, which starts from the assump- 
tion of the actual or practical exclusion of God as the 
First Cause of the universe, and attempts to explain 
all things through natural causes. 

This is true of the subject immediately before us. 
The attempt to give a purely natural explanation of 
man rests upon philosophical rather than scientific as- 
sumptions. It is indeed true that Darwin gave the im- 
pulse to this view in his work on the Descent of Man,‘ 
and that such eminent men of science as Huxley ° 
and Romanes* have followed in his path. It is also 
true that they have brought forward a vast nuinber of 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 15D 


facts which go to show, what the theist is not in the 
slightest degree interested to deny, that man on his ma- 
terial or animal side is correlated with the orders be- 
low him, and may in this way be connected with them 
by descent. That our material organisms to-day are de- 
rived directly from the vegetable and animal worlds, 
through the food we eat, goes without saying. We 
are not concerned to deny that they may, for aught we 
know, ages ago have been derived less directly from 
the vegetable and animal worlds through descent. 
But that is not the point. We object only to the ille- 
gitimate use of the theory of evolution, and we claim 
that it is so used when it is asserted to be a sufficient 
explanation of the higher nature of man. If the ver- 
dict of the scientific man is needed, we confront the 
one discoverer of the principle of natural selection 
with the other, Darwin with Wallace.” But it is not a 
matter of science. Not a particle of scientific proof 
has been adduced to show that man in his distinctive 
characteristics is derived from the animal. It is nota 
matter that can be settled by an appeal to the compara- 
tive sizes of hnman and brute craniums, or the compara- 
tive weight of their contents. It cannot be settled by 
showing in the brute instincts and intelligence the rudi- 
ments of the mental powers of man. To exhibit in the 
calls and cries of animals the beginnings of language 
does not help the matter. All these facts he in the 
sphere common to the animal and man. But when it 
comes to his distinctive qualities, his self-conscious per- 
sonality, his reason, with its intuition of universal prin- 
ciples and its power of unifying knowledge, and trans- 
forming the dead mechanical world into a living thought- 
world, his freedom of will, his moral nature, his relig- 


76 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


ious nature, with its capacity of knowing and loving God 
—when it comes to these, the scientific theory of evolu- 
tion by descent has no light at all to throw upon the 
subject.° Here is a sphere entirely different from those 
below. Here is a new spiritual cause and agent who 
demands a new and altogether different explanation. 

The claim, then, made by the philosophies of which 
we have been speaking, to possess a scientific basis in 
the theory of evolution is without justification. The 
real ground of their doctrine of man is to be found, as 
has been already intimated, in their peta a respect- 
ing the ultimate cause of the universe.” 

The pantheistic doctrine of man is undoubtedly su- 
perior in important respects to that of the agnostics 
and the materialists. At first sight it seems even to go 
beyond theism in its assertion of man’s worth. It not 
only makes him godlike, but actually declares him to 
be divine. He is the finite revelation of the Infinite. 
In him the Absolute realizes its true being. But when 
we come to examine this view more closely we are dis- 
appointed. The error in the conception of God utterly 
vitiates the doctrine of man. It is all very well to de- 
clare that man is divine, but such declarations lose their 
value when we his ds: what is meant by divinity. 
Here is not a personal God who creates man in his own 
image and enters into spiritual communion with him, 
but an impersonal and unconscious Being that attains 
consciousness and personality only in man. Man is 
made divine, but it is by reducing the divine to an im- 
personal Substance or Thought. And even this poor 
dignity is not left to man. Ho 3 is not the only expres- 
sion of the divine, but merely the highest stage in that 
process of evolution by which the Absolute realizes it- 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. rig 
self in finiteness, differing from the brute only in degree 
and not in kind. God is levelled down to nature, and 
man is but a part of nature. It seems, indeed, a great 
gain when we pass from the brute matter and energy 
of the materialist, and the dreary Unknown of the ag- 
nostic, to the universal Reason of the idealistic panthe- 
ist. But sooner or later we discover that we have been 
deceived. The reason is not what we supposed. It 
turns out to be a mere abstraction, a phantom without 
reality, and man is left a part of nature, distinguished 
from the lower orders by no essential characteristics.” 

The theistic philosophy of man repudiates these 
false views of false philosophies and asserts the unique 
position of its subject as a child of God, raised by his 
distinctive qualities far above nature. Let us look now 
at some of the details of this doctrine. 

II. The philosophy for which I am pleading main- 
tains the true personality of man. We have touched 
upon this subject in the previous lecture, where it was 
shown that the idea of self is one of the three funda- 
mental ideas of the human mind which have the high- 
est validity, and where the rise and nature of self-con- 
sciousness are briefly described. A person is a self- 
conscious, self-determining being. Personality is the 
simple but ineffable quality in which the human ego or 
subject consists. It is the postulate of all thought, in 
the true sense of the term, and of all moral and religi- 
ous exercises. It gives to man that unity in virtue of 
which he is an individual being. Indeed, it is not too 
much to say that it is the type and pledge of all unity 
as realized by human thought; it is because we know 
ourselves to be one that we can bring the scattered phe- 
nomena of sense and spirit into unity. Personal iden- 


78 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tity is the precondition of memory. The absolute unity 
of the ego furnishes the metaphysical argument for the 
immortality of the soul, which natural theology in all 
ages has loved to develop. 

That unconquerable difference between man and the 
brute, which the theistic philosophy so strongly asserts, 
appears nowhere more evidently than here, The ani- 
mal, like the man, is an individual, but his individual- 
ity isnot personal. It is conscious, but not self-conscious. 
It has memory, but not that kind of memory which is 
woven into such wonderful unity by the personal iden- 
tity of man. The state of the animal is like that of the 
child before self-consciousness has developed—with the 
difference that in the former self-consciousness does not 
exist even germinally.. If we look at the history of the 
globe, the point where self-consciousness first appears 
is marked off by a sharp line from all that precedes 
and is followed by an entirely new class of facts, of 
which previously there is but the dim prophecy. And 
now man stands alone in nature in the possession of 
this wonderful selfhood, utterly distinguished from all 
the creatures about him. 

How much is involved in that little pronoun I by 
which we designate our self-conscious personality! “A 
very short word,” says Charles Kingsley, “for in our 
language there is but one letter in it. A very common 
word; for we are using it all day long when we are 
awake, and even at night in our dreams; and yet a very 
wonderful word, for though we know well whom it 
means, yet what it means we do not know, and cannot 
understand, no, nor can the wisest philosopher who 
ever lived; and a most important word too; for we 
cannot get rid of it, we cannot help thinking it, cannot 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 79 


help saying it all our life long from childhood to the 
grave. After death, too, we shall probably be saying 
that word to ourselves, each of us, for ever and ever. 
If the whole universe—sun, moon, and stars—and all 
that we ever thought of, or can think of, were destroyed 
and became nothing, that word would probably be left ; 
and we should be left alone with it; and on what we 
meant by that little word would depend our everlasting 
happiness or misery.” " The language is not too strong 
to express the fact. 

The denial of personality is involved in the position 
of the non-theistic philosophies. We have seen that 
they obliterate the difference between man and the 
animal. In order to do so—or as a consequence of 
doing so—they would prove man impersonal. This is 
the case, without hesitation or equivocation, in all 
materialistic philosophizing. The boundaries between 
the physical and the psychical are broken down, and 
mental phenomena are explained entirely through the 
reactions of the brain upon the impressions received 
through the nerves and the end-organs of sense. The 
only unity allowed is that of the bodily organism. The 
belief in the existence of an ego or mind is scouted asa 
delusion. Agnosticism goes through the forms of burn- 
ing incense on the altar of the Unknowable by the ad- 
mission that what is called the ego has an inscrutable 
reality ; but, this pious duty performed, it hurries on to 
overtake the materialists in the practical denial of per- 
sonality. The sceptic Hume had said, “ What we call 
a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different 
perceptions, united together by certain relations, and 
supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect 
simplicity and identity.” In similar language his 


80 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


modern follower, the agnostic Spencer, declares that 
the mind is “ composed of feelings and the relation be- 
tween feelings, and the aptitudes of feelings for enter- 
ing into relations,” and in his discussions of the subject 
of free-will speaks of “the illusion” which ‘consists 
in supposing that at each moment the ego is something 
more than the aggregate of feelings and ideas, actual 
and nascent, which then exists.” “ 

The pantheist also, while admitting in words the 
personality of man, so defines it as practically to aban- 
don what is essential to the fact. Nor can he in con- 
sistency do otherwise. The personality of God and 
that of man are inseparably connected. He who denies 
the one must deny the other. If God is impersonal, or 
possesses only a guasz personality, it is vain to look in 
man for any true selfhood. So the pantheist has no 
choice in the matter. His system lays compulsion upon 
him. This is true alike of the thorough-going panthe- 
ism of Spinoza and the panlogism of Hegel.” 

III. Closely connected with the assertion of man’s 
personality, which is fundamental in the theistic phi- 
losophy, is the affirmation of his freedom. Our reason- 
ing in the previous lecture assumed this. It is only 
when we know ourselves as free, and because we know 
ourselves as such, that we are able to transcend the 
region of necessity, to which nature, inanimate and 
animate, belongs, and attain to the knowledge of an 
infinite spirit, free like ourselves. 

What is the true meaning of human freedom ? 
Simply this, that men have the power, which animals 
do not possess, of rational choice. By rational choice I 
mean the selection of one out of two or more ends of 
action, in full view of these ends, understanding them 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 51 


and their relations to each other and other possible 
ends, and with full ability to have chosen otherwise. 
We distinguish this chozce, wherein the freedom of the 
will is expressed, from volition or the executive power, 
through which the choice is carried into accomplish- 
ment, and which is not free. If we compare man with 
the animals, we declare that the latter have volitions 
but no choices in the true sense of the word. The 
animal is zmpelled by impulses and instincts, acting 
from behind and not in the light of reason. Man is 
attracted by motives, which are not compulsory but 
only furnish him with the grounds of action. These 
motives are before him, alluring him onward. The 
man indeed feels the pressure of impulses and instincts 
like the animal, for he too possesses an animal nature; 
but he is able to bring them into the light of reason, 
to examine and weigh them, and to set them into rela- 
tion with higher considerations. It lies in his option 
whether he will yield to one set of motives or another. 
There is a true sense in which he makes the motive by 
throwing his choice into the scale and giving this motive 
or that the predominance. A man knows what he is 
about and acts accordingly ; abrute only partially knows 
what it is about and does not choose in any true mean- 
ing of the word. What seems a choice in the case of 
the animal is ‘‘ Hobson’s choice,” a choice without al- 
ternative, that is, no choice at all. 

Man’s freedom is expressed in different kinds of 
choices, varying according to the ends which they adopt. 
Some are momentary in their efficacy ; some are per- 
manent. ‘To the latter class belong the choices of the 
great ends of life, including the supreme end. These 
permanent choices constitute character. A permanent 

6 


82 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


choice from the nature of the case determines a multi- 
tude of subordinate choices, and the choice of a su- 
preme end affects all subordinate choices. Freedom 
persists and is immanent in such choices; they are its 
highest exercise. They entrench themselves in habit 
and give the fixed element to human life. It is a mis- 
take to suppose that freedom and certainty are incon- 
sistent with each other in either God or man. 

The proof of freedom consists ultimately in the ap- 
peal to consciousness. The unsophisticated mind knows 
itself to befree. This certainty of freedom is involved 
in all moral judgments and exercises, in the sense of re- 
sponsibility, in the recognition of law. It finds a war- 
rant in the institutions of human society and the actions 
of men throughout the ages. If the determinist denies 
the appeal to consciousness, we do not impugn his hon- 
esty, but we show him that he, like every other man, 
must think and act upon the assumption of freedom, 
and that he inevitably judges other men by the same 
rule. We therefore assert that he misinterprets his 
consciousness. If he attempts to prove his point by the 
assertion that man is a part of the universe and that the 
universe is under necessary law, we appeal once more 
to consciousness to show that man is the great exception, 
correlated with nature yet different from all other nat- 
ural beings. If he has recourse to statistics to show 
that man himself is under necessary law, even in the 
sphere of conduct—so many murders committed every 
year, so many suicides, so many thefts, — we show 
that character, the fixed element in freedom, and the 
nature-side of man, in which he is not free, are suffi- 
cient to account for the facts, while the statistics them- 
selves yary so much as to prove their inadequacy for 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITI ONS. 83 


the task assigned them. But we always come back to 
the ultimate proof, the assurance of consciousness that 
we are free—an assurance that vindicates itself in prac- 
tical thought and action when men deny it in specula- 
tion. 

The non-theistic philosophies of our day are deter- 
ministic. It could not be otherwise; the logic of their 
denial of the theistic conception of God requires also 
the denial of this distinctive elementin man. There 
never has been, and never can be, any cordial recognition 
of freedom outside of theism. And conversely, the de- 
nial of freedom in man means, if it is consistently car- 
ried out, the denial of God and religion. It goes with- 
out saying that materialism is deterministic. But this 
is equally true of agnosticism and pantheism. Spencer, 
in his chapter on the will, in the Principles of Psychol- 
ogy, declares that the belief in free-will is an illusion. 
He says: “To reduce the general question to its sim- 
plest form: Psychical changes either conform to law or 
they do not. If they do not conform to law, this work ” 
(the Principles of Psychology), “in common with all 
works on the subject, is sheer nonsense ; no science of 
Psychology is possible. If they do conform to law, 
there cannot be any such thing as free-will.” Spino- 
za, in the same way, denies human freedom. The later 
pantheism does the same; the only freedom it concedes 
is that which consists in rising out of the life of nature 
into that of the spirit; it finds no place for freedom in 
the sense of the power of choice. 

The present tendencies of scientific and theological 
thought render the subject before us peculiarly impor- 
tant. Undoubtedly the cultivated minds of our times 
gravitate strongly in the direction of determinism, while 


84 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


they are to a considerable degree supported in this ten- 
dency by our traditional theology. Before the time of 
Jonathan Edwards Christian orthodoxy did not deny hu- 
man freedom. It did indeed insist with the strongest 
emphasis that man in his natural unconverted state has 
no power to attain to salvation ; he cannot convert him- 
self, he cannot in any true sense obey the divine law, 
he cannot attain the chief end for which he was created. 
In this sense it was declared that man is unfree. But 
there was no intention of denying that men possess that 
power of rational choice which differences them from 
the brutes. All that was claimed was that through sin 
this power has become inoperative in one department 
of man’s nature, the spiritual. The distinction was 
carefully made between the “ spiritual things ” in which 
the sinner is disabled, and the sphere of ‘civil right- 
cousness,” including all the departments of his active 
life in which he is not directly occupied with religion, 
where he is still free. Thus the principle of human 
freedom is fully vindicated, though its sphere of action 
in sinful man is limited. Indeed the old Calvinistic 
theology did not greatly concern itself with the philo- 
sophical question respecting the freedom of the will, 
but taking freedom for granted, as every unsophisti- 
cated mind must do, it was only careful in the practi- 
eal interests of Christian truth, which demands the ab- 
solute supremacy of the divine grace, to repudiate all 
power on the part of lost sinners to work out their own 
salvation.” 

It was an evil day for Christian theology when Jon- 
athan Edwards called to the aid of the doctrines of 
grace, imperiled, as he thought, by Arminianism, the 
doctrine of philosophical determinism.” I say this, 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 85 


realizing fully the greatness of the man and the impor- 
tance of the work he did for theology and practical 
religion. But I say it deliberately. What Edwards 
accomplished i in staying the flood of rationalistic indif- 
ference which was sweeping over America as well as 
Great Britain cannot be too highly prized. The great 
revivals which he initiated put a new face on the 
Christian cause. The renewed currency he gave to 
the old truths of spiritual religion, and the importance 
he attached to Christian experience as a real contact 
of the soul with God and Christ are least of all in a 
course of lectures like this to be underestimated. The 
impulse he gave to theological thought, and the miti- 
gation of some of the asperities of the older Calvinism, 
which we owe to him, have made all succeeding gener- 
ations his debtors. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, 
the alliance which he established between theology and 
a false philosophy was fraught with evil. The dam- 
age would have been even greater, had not the real 
nature of the doctrine in point been partially hidden 
by the continued use of the old term freedom, though 
in a new sense. Indeed, there was an unintended and 
largely unconscious insincerity in the language em- 
ployed, which appeared most notably in the prevalent 
distinction between natural and moral ability. It was 
possible to tell men that they were free, when all the 
freedom conceded to them was the ability to do as they 
pleased, a freedom amounting to no more than the 
spontaneity of the brute. 

It seems strange that an alliance so dangerous should 
have commended itself so extensively to the most de- 
voted and intelligent men in our evangelical churches 
for more than a century. It is useless to try to mini- 


86 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


mize the doctrine; it is necessarianism pure and sim- 
ple. Man is governed by motives, and these are not 
of his own making. His will is simply a machine 
which registers the action of the strongest motive. 
The fact that motives are not material or physical, but 
spiritual causes, that they are from within and not from 
without, does not change the matter. The freedom 
that consists only in doing as we please, not in rational 
choice between alternatives, both lying in our power, is 
no freedom. I freely admit that the fact that the ulti- 
mate Cause, to which the complicated lines of motives 
and influences may all be traced back, is the Christian 
God, prevents Edwards’s doctrine from being imme- 
diately irreligious in its tendency. But the true out- 
come of this philosophy is Dr. Emmons’s doctrine of 
the divine efficiency,” according to which the good and 
the bad in man are alike the results of God’s direct oper- 
ation—or, to state the fact more truly, the logical re- 
sult is some form of materialistic or agnostic atheism. 
Only the interests of evangelical Christianity, to which 
this philosophical help was supposed necessary, could 
have made men, so consecrated and so wise in other 
matters, hold a view from which the common-sense of 
man revolts. 

This denial of freedom, which is so marked a feature 
of our age, falling in as it does with the scientific spir- 
it, and imposing upon multitudes who have not suffi- 
cient philosophical training to detect its fallacy and its 
logical consequences, is a fact full of danger. The 
best thought, philosophical and theological, of our time 
recognizes this danger, and is endeavoring to guard 
against it by the maintenance and vindication of a 
truer philosophy. It would be scarcely true to say 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 87 


that the majority are at present upon this side. But 
fortunately such questions are not settled by majori- 
ties, but by reason and conscience. It is significant to 
note how the more thoughtful minds among the theo- 
logians who still accept the system of Jonathan Ed- 
wards are awakening to the peril which threatens the- 
istic and Christian truth, and are trying to avert it. 
Thus, the younger Dr. Hodge, of precious memory 
among evangelical Christians, declares: “‘ This matter 
of free-will underlies everything. Ifyou bring it to 
question, it is infinitely more than Calvinism. 
Everything i is gone if free-will is gone; the moral sys- 
tem is gone if free-will is gone; you cannot escape, 
except by materialism on the one hand or pantheism 
on the other.” Well may he use language like this 
when an agnostic determinist like Huxley” asserts his 
entire agreement with Jonathan Edwards and the or- 
thodox theologians respecting the doctrine of necessity. 
It is to be regretted that Dr. Hodge is so. involved in 
the necessarian doctrine that he goes on to affirm the 
only difference between the spontaneity of a mouse and 
the free-will of a man to be that the latter acts “ with 
the illumination of reason and conscience.” The 
truth is, in the struggle between Christianity and un- 
belief, the Christian is placed in a position of inevita- 
ble disadvantage, unless he is able to affirm clearly and 
unequivocally the freedom of the will.” 

IV. Again, the theistic philosophy of man declares 
that he is under law. I have touched upon this truth in 
presenting the moral argument for the divine exist- 
ence, in which the fact of a law laying obligation upon 
our wills is shown to be a reason for assuming the ex- 
istence of an absolute Will, holy, just, and good. It is 


88 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


of the utmost importance for our present task that we 
make good the position involved in the assertion that 
man is under a moral law. Morality and religion are 
essentially correlated ; they are different aspects of the 
same fact. The attitude of man toward law which we 
call moral becomes religious when it is considered as 
his attitude toward the Lawgiver. Morals and religion 
meet in the Jaw of love: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart and soul and strength and 
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.” 

Upon this subject likewise we part company with the 
non-theistic philosophies. Pantheism lays great stress 
upon the law of right. At first it seems to maintain it 
with all the reverence of the theist. It repudiates the 
hedonistic ethics and insists upon the eternal and nec- 
essary sanctity of the right as something belonging to 
the very constitution of things, as inherent iin God him- 
self. But a closer examination compels us to tell a very 
different story. The denial of the divine personality 
and of human personality and freedom characteristic of 
pantheism vitiates its ethics, much as it contains that 
is valuable. Man is only a part of the great process, at 
once divine and natural. The law of right is a natural 
law, not a moral law in the true meaning of the term. 
It designates an ideal but does not set up an authority. 
It points out the course of man’s development if he is 
to realize the germinal moral life in him, but it does 
not speak to his conscience in the thunder tones of a 
divine command laying obligation upon a being free to 
accept or reject. It is no personal Power, but an un- 
conscious “ Eternal not ourselves that makes for right- 
eousness,” In a movement of nature in which it and we 
alike are by necessity implicated. Such a system gives 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 89 


no trne basis for morality or religion. It is, in fact, no 
permanent resting-place for human thought. The his- 
tory of philosophy shows that it always sooner or later 
gives place to some form of hedonistic or utilitarian 
ethics, if not to the denial of all ethics. 

Equally unsatisfactory are the materialistic and ag- 
nostic systems of ethics. It is sufficient for our present 
purpose to confine ourselves to the latter. If the abso- 
Inte Cause is unknown, it is evident that ethics can de- 
rive no sanction from that source; such a sanction 
would imply that the Absolute is holy, which is con- 
trary to the fundamental maxim of agnosticism, that 
the Absolute is wholly unknown. Dean Mansel, the 
Christian agnostic, declared that morality might mean 
something different in God from what it does in man ; 
but he supplemented agnosticism by divine revelation 
and thus secured a basis for ethics. Unbelieving agnos- 
tics, like Herbert Spencer, who will not avail them- 
selves of any such Deus ex machina, are obliged to turn 
elsewhere to find a foundation for morals. Accordingly, 
_ they have recourse to the old hedonistic utilitarianism, 
modified by the application of the principle of evolu- 
tion. “ Conduct is good or bad,” says Spencer, ‘ accord- 
ing as its total effects are pleasurable or painful.” * The 
pleasure which renders an act good is not necessarily 
that of the individual, for Spencer recognizes the fact 
that we are members of society, and makes a place in 
his theory, like Bentham and Mill, for “the greatest 
happiness of the greatest number,” and so for “ altru- 
istic”? as well as “egoistic” or “self-regarding” mo- 
tives. But he says that the “ general happiness is to be 
achieved mainly through the adequate pursuit of their 
own happiness by individuals; while, reciprocally, the 


90 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


happinesses of individuals are to be achieved in part by 
their pursuit of the general happiness,” ** Mill had ex- 
plained the moral sense by association and education. 
Spencer explains it by evolution and heredity. It is a 
constitutional instinct resulting from the accumulated 
experience of men as to the tendency of conduct to pro- 
duce pleasure or pain, or, what is the same thing, to pro- 
mote life or diminish it. 

But this theory, ingeniously though it has been 
wrought out by the agnostic evolutionists, fails to ex- 
plain the facts and affords no adequate basis for morals 
and religion. The distinctive feature of the moral law 
is the authority with which it comes. It has for its 
mark neither the must of a law of nature, nor the 
should of a law of expediency, but the ougAé of a high- 
er Will laying obligation upon our wills. Grant that 
the tendency of that course of conduct which we call 
right is to secure the highest happiness of the individ- 
ual and society, or of the individual in society, still why 
are we bound to strive for the attainment of that hap- 
piness? It is indeed expedient, desirable, important ; 
but why should it be obligatory ? These are questions 
the agnostic ethics cannot answer. Nor does it help 
the matter by the appeal to evolution; for granting 
that the moral sense is inherited, still how did it first 
acquire this element of obligation? No accumulation 
of infinitesimal increments of expediency will ever pro- 
duce obligation. The two things belong to different 
spheres. Evolution, as we have seen already, breaks 
down when it comes to man’s higher nature. 

Moreover, this theory of ethics gives no sufficient 
foundation for man’s ethico-religious exercises. Law 
should turn us to a personal Lawgiver, a Being whom 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 91 


we can worship, a Master whom we can serve. But 
here we have merely an unconscious and impersonal 
law of nature, utterly powerless to command our rev- 
erence, our obedience, or our trust. 

In the presence of these widely held and utterly er- 
roneous systems of ethics, which reduce the moral law 
to a name, we need to uphold with unflinching constancy 
the true doctrine of right, essential to both religion and 
Christianity. “Right is right, since God is God.” 
The moral law proclaims alike in conscience and in the 
world about us that we are under the government of a 
personal God who would have us holy because he is 
holy. Conscience is his Sinai in our souls, which flash- 
es out denunciation of wrong, and his Calvary, from 
which the message of peace and good-will comes to us 
when we are in the way of his commandments.” We 
have not been put into this world to be happy, but to 
do right.” We may believe—and ought, since God is 
good, to do so—that righteousness and happiness will 
ultimately prove coincident. But that is an issue which 
we must trust to God himself; it is not the founda- 
tion of conduct, and can never be made its prime motive. 

V. So we are brought to another closely related fact 
which our theistic philosophy asserts and vindicates, 
namely, that man is a responsible being. He must an- 
swer for the use of his freedom in its relation to the 
moral law; and the answer must be not to an imper- 
sonal law, not to his fellow-men or himself, but to God. 
The immense cleft between the brute and man, which 
has manifested itself all through our present discussion, 
here comes fully to light. You can neither reward 
nor punish a brute in any real meaning of the words re- 
ward and punish ; it is nota responsible being. The 


92 HVIDENOCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


child has only a dawning responsibility. The mature 
man, standing out in the clear light of his moral re- 
sponsibility, with the divine law arching like a firma- 
ment above him, is an accountable being, since he is 
free, rational, personal. Our prevalent legislative and 
legal ethics, so far as it assumes that human law and 
punishment have for their exclusive object the pre- 
vention of crime and the reformation of the criminal, 
mistakes the truth. Thus capital punishment has been 
abolished in some quarters, and the whole theory of 
punishment in many respects changed. But this utili- 
tarian doctrine of responsibility degrades man to the 
brute’s level. Why should criminals be punished 4 
Because they are guilty—that is, because they are re- 
sponsible beings and have to answer for the abuse of 
their freedom. What is human law? It is an ex- 
pression of the divine law; otherwise it has no mean- 
ing. The magistrate is God’s deputy. There is no 
authority but of God; and the authorities that be are 
ordained of God (Rom. xiii. 1). We are responsible 
beings and accountable to our Maker. 

VI. This opens the way for the consideration of 
another fact asserted by the theistic philosophy, and 
either openly, or by implication, denied by its rivals: 
I refer to the fact of human sin. The doctrine of sin 
belongs to the sphere of natural theology and the phi- 
losophy of religion. Christianity throws a new light 
upon sin and reveals its true character, but it does not 
first disclose its existence. Sin, as has been truly said, 
is not a doctrine but a fact. Christianity may be true 
or false, but still sin is here. It is @ prvori to Christian 
experience, a fact without which that experience would 
not be possible. | 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 93 


What is sin? Has it a reality, as the vast majority 
of mankind have declared in all ages and declare to- 
day? or is it a mere figment of the imagination? It 
is of the utmost importance that we should be per- 
suaded in our own minds as to the truth. The theistic 
thought which I have been expounding gives no uncer- 
tain answer to the question. As it declares that man is 
personal, free, under law, and responsible, so it declares 
that he is a sinner, and that sin is a breach of the 
moral law, and disobedience to God. Sin, and the con- 
sequent guilt, 1t recognizes as realities in the moral uni- 
verse, as certain as the great realities of the physical 
world. Sin, it declares, is an abuse of freedom by using 
it in disobedience to the moral law and its divine 
Author. Guilt is the reaction of the divine wrath upon 
us when we sin, witnessed in conscience, which pro- 
claims our responsibility as the authors of our sin. 

The antagonistic philosophies I have had occasion so 
many times to mention, all, in some form or other, deny 
sin. The denial of pantheism is the most plausible and 
difficult to detect in its true meaning. We have seen 
with what fervor the pantheist insists upon the sanctity 
of the right in distinction from the wrong. But his 
theory, with the denial of the divine personality, and of 
human personality, freedom, and accountability, neces- 
sarily excludes sin in the meaning attached to it by the 
theist. If God is the source of all things, the ground 
of all development; if the development of nature and 
man is an unfolding of what from the first has been 
implicit in God; if nature is manifested God, and God 
the natura naturans, then what we call sin has its 
origin in God and is itself in a true sense divine. There 
is no evading this logic. Accordingly, when we come 


04 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


to look more closely at pantheism, we find that it re- 
duces sin to an element in the divine process equally 
necessary with goodness, though not equally good. It 
is finiteness, it is the outcome of the sensuous nature 
of man, it is a stage in development necessary for 
the attainment of a higher stage, it is the necessary 
converse of goodness—its antithesis, its opposite pole. 
It is a discord which is needful to the attainment 
of a higher harmony. In a word, it is divine as well 
as human, necessary rather than free, only relatively 
evil instead of altogether evil. And if the evil of sin 
is relative, so is its guilt relative. Guilt is not the 
responsible authorship of sin, witnessing to a broken 
law and a displeased God; it is an illusion, as, indeed, 
sin itself is an illusion. Let a man get his bearings in 
the universe, and sin and guilt disappear. The result 
is the conclusion that sin, ‘‘in itself considered,” is in- 
deed evil; but that, “all things considered,” it is good.” 
Let the sinner once discover the secret and he is no lon- 
ger a sinner; he is a discord necessary to the harmony, 
and therefore himself harmonious. This is character- 
_istic of all pantheism ; it makes light of sin.” 
Agnosticism does no better. It has only this advan- 
tage, that it does not hide its meaning under religious 
phraseology, but says right out what it means. Of 
course it can only say one thing. If right is the con- 
duct which promotes pleasure, and wrong that which 
promotes pain; if pleasure is conformity with environ- 
ment, and pain indicates non-conformity, then sin is 
physical rather than ethical, it is a misfortune rather 
than a wrong, it carries with it defect and loss rather 
than guilt. The same thing follows from the deter- 
minism, which is essential to the agnostic view. If 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 95 


men are not free, then sin does not involve responsibil- 
ity and guilt. The conclusion cannot be evaded if we 
admit the premises. Moreover, if the Absolute is un- 
known, yet the Cause of all phenomena, there is no room 
for responsibility. In fact, since sin is a phenomenon, 
the agnostic, like the pantheist, makes the Absolute 
responsible for sin—if such a shadowy being as the 
agnostic Absolute can be conceived of as responsible 
for anything. 

The application of evolution caps the climax of the 
agnostic doctrine of sin; it explains the whole history 
of the world as a process by which things are attain- 
ing greater and greater conformity with their environ- 
ment. Accordingly, sin is not, as the Catechism has it, 
“want of conformity to the law of God,’ but want of 
conformity to environment; in other words, partially 
evolved conduct,” which in due time, if left to itself, 
will attain complete development; so that, as a witty 
English minister said a few years ago, the evolutionary 
man does not exclaim with Paul, ‘“O wretched man 
that [ am! who shall deliver me?” but, “ O progressive 
creature that [ am! who shall help me to evolve my- 
self ?” * 

All this is perfectly natural and consistent. The ag- 
nostic has no choice but to argue as he does. By and by, 
when he has thought his philosophy through, he must— 
unless he rejects it altogether—remodel society, religion, 
and individual life in accordance with this theory, that 
is, with sin left out. The chief effort of government 
and individual activity must then be to accelerate evo- 
Intion, and who shall say what answer can be given to 
those who do not care to have it accelerated? For 
why should evolution be completed? What obligation 


96 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, 


are men under to acquiesce in this method of nature ? 
Evolution means the “survival of the fittest.’ That 
means, in the beginnings of evolution, the survival of 
the physically strongest. Then, as intelligence gets the 
upper hand in the struggle for existence, it comes to 
mean the survival of the cunningest. Finally, it comes 
to mean the survival of the best, that is, of those who 
most advance individual and social welfare in the high- 
est spheres. But granting that evolution tends to ad- 
vance along such lines of beneficent progress, suppose 
that the physically strong and the intellectually cunning 
decline to be elbowed out of existence by the morally 
good? What right have you to insist that men should 
be good? as not sin its rights as truly as virtue? or 
rather, is it sin at all? Why all this pains to get 
above animality, when animality is, after all, the goal as 
well as the starting-point? So the evolutionary ethies 
destroys itself. 

Only the theistic view of man, insisting as it does 
upon the divine personality and relation to the soul, 
and upon human freedom and responsibility under the 
divine law, can satisfy the requirements of the prob- 
Jem. Sin is not a phantom, but a reality, an awful 
fact in God’s moral universe ; and man, the sinner, is 
guilty and condemned, the object of God’s displeasure, 
obnoxious to his punishments. Sin is the one absolute 
evil in the universe, not relative in any sense, except 
that God permits it and controls it. It is utterly hate- 
ful to God, utterly antagonistic to the good, utterly 
opposed to man’s true nature and destination. Every 
attempt to explain it away or to diminish its evil is 
based upon error. It is bad, and only bad. 

VIL. The theistic philosophy of man also affirms the 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. o¢ 


relation of individual sin to the sin of the race. This 
likewise is a truth of natural theology or of the phi- 
losophy of religion. 

As regards this fact, recent philosophical and scien- 
tific thought, even in forms in other respects antagon- 
istic to Christian theism, has contributed to a truer view 
than that which at one time prevailed. Deism viewed 
mankind as an aggregate of separated and disconnected 
persons. Its whole thought was concerned with the 
individual. In opposition to the realistic philosophies 
and theologies it was atomistic. The traditional ortho- 
doxy, starting as it did from the positions of Augustin 
and Calvin, was theoretically opposed to this view. 
But, as we have seen, at the beginning of the present 
century there was a strong rationalistic or deistic ten- 
dency manifest in orthodox theology. It showed itself 
in that prevailing individualism of thought which at- 
tained its extreme expression in the so-called New- 
England theology. But the theistic philosophy and 
the orthodox theology of the present time have returned 
to the older and truer view, or rather, let me say, have 
advanced to a truer construction of the old view. We 
distinguish between the race and the individual, be- 
tween mankind and men. Werecognize the fact that 
the individual does not live by himself, independently 
of his fellows, but lives only in virtue of his connec- 
tion with mankind, The race is an organism, a whole 
composed of parts which are mutually means and ends, 
and which together contribute to common ends. Mod- 
ern science has called renewed attention to the principle 
of heredity, according to which the child comes into 
the world with traits and dispositions derived from its 
ancestors, destined to exert an untold influence upon 

7 


98 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the later life. In infancy the child is but a shoot of 
the parent stem ; it has no individual life ; left to itself 
it would die in a day; itis wrapped up and included in 
the parental life." Yet this is the time of strongest 
impressions, when the mind is moulded and receives 
the shape it is to have in after years. The child grows 
and is educated in the family and the school, with play- 
mates and friends, in the church, in society. The most of 
its knowledge is, if not second-hand, at least shaped by 
the beliefs and opinions of others. Then, all through 
life the man or woman is among men and women, in- 
fluenced by the common culture, the prevalent opinions 
—moral, religious, professional, business, political. In 
this intricate net- work of extraneous influences freedom, 
indeed, has its place and does its work. The character 
is, in a true sense, a man’s own. The great decisions 
of life he makes for himself. But freedom does its 
work within limits. The shuttle is shot through 
threads already prepared for it; the pattern is, to a 
considerable extent, predetermined. We have some 
power over our environment, but it has a great power 
over us. We can never wholiy cut ourselves off from 
the tree of humanity. Like the coral polyps, we are 
members of a community. 

Now sin, the great human curse, has entrenched it- 
self in this complicated and mysterious region of con- 
nection between the individual and the race. There is 
a corporate sin as there is an individual sin, and the 
individual sin is implicated in the corporate sin. It is 
not my intention to enter here into any of the contro- 
versial questions mooted by the theologians respecting 
what is called ‘“ original sin,” nor is it needful for our 
present discussion to do so, It will be sufficient to 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 99 


speak of the facts concerning which almost all agree. 
Sin has obtained such a foothold in the race relations 
of men that every individual of the race who comes to 
the period of responsible action, abuses his freedom and 
becomes a personal sinner. We may not be able to 
draw the line between the general and the personal. 
We certainly need, in order that there may be room 
for personal responsibility, to maintain at all hazards 
the freedom of the individual in his sin. But we know 
that, as a matter of fact, all sin and come short of the 
glory of God. The individual thus appropriates the 
common evil, and what before was not his is thereupon 
truly predicated of him. His personal guilt grows out 
of, and in turn strikes down deep roots into, a race 
guilt. All men, when they reach the period of reflec- 
tion, find themselves members of a guilty race, involved 
in it not only by a process of nature but also by their 
own fault. 

Let it be understood that I am not speaking now of 
the teachings of the Bible. Our concern at present is 
with that philosophy of religion which is a presuppo- 
sition of Christianity, not with Christianity itself. My 
conviction is that all I have claimed as true can be 
proved by philosophy, and would be just as true, 
though certainly not as evident, if the apostle Paul 
had never written the fifth chapter of Romans or the 
fifteenth of First Corinthians. I have said nothing of 
the Fall. This isa doctrine of revelation, at least so 
far as its historical form is concerned. Speculation is 
not competent to inform us what the actual beginnings 
of sin were. The most we can say, looking at the sub- 
ject from the philosophical point of view, is that man, 
as nade by God, must have been sinless and free, and 


100 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


sinless that he might use his freedom for God; to 
which may be added that the first man who sinned 
must have done so by the abuse of his freedom. Here 
we have what is essential to the doctrine of the Fall, 
and the most that we can expect from natural theol- 
ogy. 

One point, however, in this connection. We have 
seen how inadequate the theory of evolution is to ex- 
plain the nature of sin; it is equally unable to account 
for the beginnings of sin. Evolution involves a steady 
progress. The Fall, if it actually occurred, was a break 
in the chain of evolution which cannot be explained by 
that law. Ilere, as elsewhere, the doctrine, so valuable 
as a scientific hypothesis, so luminous in its explanation 
of large tracts of natural history, breaks down when it 
comes to humanity. In man a higher principle appears, 
which is subject to a different law. Man’s animal 
nature may be the result of evolution ; that is a small 
matter, and few who understand what organic evolution 
means care much one way or the other. Even man’s 
higher nature may be under the law of evolution, so 
far as it is subject to necessity. But there are elements 
there which belong toa higher and different order, and, 
even in their perversion, must be explained in a differ- 
ent way. Evolution, if it attempts an explanation of the 
beginnings of sin, must make the Fall a “ fall upward,” 
as it has been called. But that is no explanation ; 
rather it is the darkening of knowledge and the con- 
fusion of thought. This natural law does not run on 
continuously into the spiritual world but becomes sub- 
ordinate to a higher principle. 

VIII. Still further, the theistic philosophy asserts 
that man was made for God, and finds his highest 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 101 


good in him. It has already been intimated that 
man’s moral endowments merge in his religious nature, 
and that morals and religion are only different aspects 
of the same reality. Theistic philosophy cannot re- 
frain from putting the question concerning the swm- 
mum bonum and offering its answer to it. For what 
was man placed here in the world? what is his true 
destination? What is the goal of the individual and 
the race? In opposition to all pessimistic theories of 
man, and to those forms of agnosticism which refuse 
to answer the question of man’s destination, theism is 
persistently optimistic. It declares that man is stead- 
ily moving forward to a high moral goal. Agnostic 
evolution, it is true, rather inconsistently, is also optim- 
istic in a certain sense, since it declares that the race 
is advancing in the process of evolution. But its op- 
timism concerns the race rather than the individual, 
and does not point to the highest spiritual ends.” 

But the theistic philosophy bases its optimism upon 
what is highest in man, his relation to God. He isa 
personal being, made in the image of God, and he is 
able to know, serve, and love God. God reveals him- 
self to men; they are able, in the use of their faculties, 
to come to the knowledge of God. They are formed 
for communion with him. He is their life. To have 
his favor is their highest blessedness. His law is the 
rule of their conduct; to him they are answerable. In 
him they live and move and have their being, physi- 
cally, intellectually, morally, spiritually. As Augustin 
said, “‘O Lord, we were made for thee, and our souls 
are restless till they find their rest in thee.” * 

This is the declaration of all religions, and not of 
Christianity alone. In spite of their innumerable er- 


102 HVIDENOCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


rors and abuses and immoralities, they testify to man’s 
need for God. The goal of the individual and the 
race is communion with God and likeness to him. We 
cannot doubt the assertion of our reason upon this 
subject. The mora] and spiritual ideals combine with 
the moral and spiritual relations to God to assure us 
that we are his children, and that we were made to re- 
alize his image in us and to live in his presence and 
favor. 

This is the reason why the theistic philosophy of re- 
ligion insists so strongly, in opposition to pantheism 
and agnosticism, upon the immortality of the soul, and 
will not admit that we are thrown back exclusively 
upon the Christian revelation for the proof that death 
does not end all. It declares that the soul which is 
capable of communion with God here and now, and 
which bears upon it the marks of its destination to be 
like God, cannot be “cast as rubbish to the void” 
when death destroys the body. Here is something too 
high, too precious, for that. “The personality of man is, 
as we have seen, altogether different from the individ- 
uality of the animal. Its relation to God gives it a 
kind of divine value. The non-theistic philosophers 
say that the belief in immortality is merely the ex- 
pression of man’s desire to live; stat pro ratione volun- 
tas. He does not want to perish, and so is convinced 
that he will not. In his vanity he thinks himself better 
than the brute, and is too proud to accept the common 
doom. So men in all ages think they will survive the 
shock of death, and all religions try to give reasons for 
the belief. It is the part of philosophy, however, to 
get behind the error, and to show that men are mortal, 
soul as well as body. Pantheism, which has the art to 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 103 


utter the most obnoxious doctrines in the gentlest and 
least offensive way, does not discard the word immor- 
tality. It admits that thought can never perish, but 
for that which makes man man, his individual self-con- 
scious personality, it holds out no hope of permanence.” 
Agnosticism, in the person of its most accomplished 
authoress, sings of an immortality in the “ choir invis- 
ible”—in the posthumous influence of earthly deeds 
and words; but it knows no other.” Theism alone 
teaches the true worth, and so the true destination, of 
man. 

IX. This brings us to the last point—the theistic 
philosophy asserts man’s need of redemption. This 
much it is sufficient to prove, though insufficient to 
answer the question, what the nature of the redemp- 
tion shall be, and in what way it shall be bestowed upon 
man. Man as a sinner is far from his goal. Neither 
the individual nor the race has reached it. It is not 
merely that man lags in the process of development ; 
he has turned aside and back. All have gone astray, 
and the race are following devious ways. So, in spite 
of the theistic optimism, there is a pessimistic side to 
the truth. The philosophy of theism maintains the 
truth of two apparently contradictory facts: the ideal 
of human perfection and the perversion of man through 
sin. It recognizes the fact that sin is the great hinder- 
ing cause in the progress of the world, as in that of 
the individual. No man is what he might be or what 
heought to be. The institutions of society are corrupt. 
Sin has rooted itself deeply in the soil of humanity. 
Great wrongs which no man, or body of men, seem 
strong enough to right, have fastened themselves, vam- 
pire-like, upon the race. Men tyrannize over their fel- 


104 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


low-men. Civilization and science are made to minister 
to sin. Even the physical world is scarred and seamed 
with the marks of man’s sinfulness, 

Hence the need of redemption. Somehow the indi- 
vidual and the race must be brought out of their sin 
and evil and disease, and carried forward to their goal. 
Theistic philosophy goes thus far. It is sufficient to 
prove man’s need of redemption. Indeed, the fact is 
thrust upon it whenever it contemplates the world and 
men as they are. It needs no deep insight into moral 
truth to teach the thoughtful man who lives in a great 
city like London or New York, and views the awful sin 
and misery which prevail, the festering evil which hides 
in the darkness, and the brazen-faced wickedness which 
flaunts itself in the daylight, that there is an imminent 
and imperative need of raising men from their degra- 
dation. It requires but little knowledge of the world 
to beimpressed with the crying need for reform in the 
institutions and customs of society. He who believes 
that there is a God active here and now, at work in 
human history and individual life, and who realizes 
that man was made for God, and can find his true 
blessedness in him alone, must recognize the absolute 
necessity of redemption. 

It must be understood that the redemption, the need 
of which is witnessed to by the theistic philosophy, 
means something more than mere reform or betterment, 
such as may be brought about by natural or human 
means. Sin has reduced men to a condition from which 
deliverance can come only through supernatural and 
superhuman help. Sin involves inability. The sinner 
is helpless to deliver himself. His will is bound, not 
in the sense that he does not possess the power of choice, 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 105 


but because he has lost the power of action. Ilis intel- 
lect is blinded, so that he could not see clearly how to 
deliver himself, if he had the ability. Ilis sensibility 
is disordered. His conscience is loaded down with 
guilt. And if he cannot help himself, still less ean he 
help his fellow-man, who like himself is bound fast in 
the chains of sin; and what is true of the individual is 
equally true of the race. The deliverance must come 
from above, if it is to come at all, from the one being 
in all the universe who is capable of furnishing it, that 
is, from God. 

The philosophies which deny the personality of God 
and teach the lower view of man, also deny the need of 
redemption. Because they make light of sin, the need 
of a moral transformation does not appear great to 
them; and such reformation as they see to be needful 
—for the denial of redemption is made rather with the 
lips than with the heart, and the awful fact of sin presses 
itself in some form or other upon every thinking mind 
with a persistent intrusion that cannot be evaded—they 
endeavor to bring about by natural and human means. 
So they offer such remedies as they have, insufficient 
enough, but a testimony to the crying need. The fa- 
vorite remedy is culture. Education is the panacea ; 
knowledge of literature, of the arts, of science, of this 
and that; but knowledge and the taste that is cultivated 
by knowledge, and nothing more. But the remedies do 
not cure the disease ; in fact, in many cases they rather 
aggravate it. Culture, intellectual power, the gratifica- 
tion of the tastes, may all be made to minister to sin, 
and this is too often the result where they are unac- 
companied by higher influences. Pantheism has shown 
itself thus far utterly unable to cope with human sin or 


106 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


to offer any adequate means of redemption from it. 
This is true whether we look at the philosophical pan- 
theism of Germany or at the literary pantheism of Car- 
lyle and Emerson with its high-sounding words and fine 
contempt of all that is mean and low. Agnosticism has 
not run a career so long, but it has fallen heir to the re- 
sources of the earlier materialism and utilitarianism, and 
we can form some judgment of its probable success, I 
should be slow to refuse it the praise that is its due. It 
has set itself to correct the abuses and wrongs which 
prevail in human society. It has done much to promote 
the well-being of the individual and the masses. We 
cannot speak in too strong terms of commendation re- 
specting what has been done by men professing this 
philosophy for the material improvement of the lower 
classes, in the way of better sanitary arrangements for 
the poor, the promotion of association in labor by which 
the workman may share in the profits of his skill, the 
extension of the electoral franchise, and the like. But 
such attempts at the amelioration of the outward con- 
dition of men seem scarcely to touch the deep need of 
the sinful race. 

The old deism, and the rationalistie philosophy and 
religion connected with it, sought to do the same work 
by moral means. ‘This was a higher method. At first 
it seemed as if men could save themselves if they only 
would. If the will is free, and many of the deists ad- 
mitted that this is the case, there seems to be no ob- 
stacle in the way of moral reformation and self-improve- 
ment. ‘The German rationalists of the last century, 
and the early Unitarians of England and this country, 
employed this method. Within certain narrow limits 
they succeeded. Undoubtedly in the case of individuals 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 107 


who still stood in the old orthodox traditions, and were, 
though aberrant in doctrine, actually leading lives of 
communion with God, a high type of character was 
attained. specially in the sphere of what the old 
theologians, as we have seen, called “civil righteous- 
ness,” where human freedom has been least affected by 
sin, they set an example of noble morality for which the 
world cannot be too thankful. In the work of social 
reform their achievements were also high. They gave 
the impulse to many of the most beneficent moral move- 
ments of modern times. It was largely owing to their 
influence that slavery was overthrown in this country. 
But this deistic form of religion and philosophy has 
always had one result. After a time the movement 
has lost its power and come to a standstill, leaving 
the actual achievement but small in comparison with 
the world’s great need. Those who have accepted the 
tenets of this school have either gone back into ortho- 
doxy, where alone they could find a philosophy and re- 
ligion which could satisfy their needs, or have gone off 
into pantheism and agnosticism. 

All the religions of mankind recognize the need of 
redemption. Ido not doubt that the craving of men 
for communion with God, and the knowledge of him 
they have through the natural revelation, would be suf- 
ficient to give rise to religion apart from the fact of 
sin. But sin is the moving cause of religion in the 
world as it is. Men feel their misery, they long for 
release, they ery to God for help, they seek redemption. 
The means the ethnic religions offer are inadequate and 
perverted. The very sin which has obscured the knowl- 
edge of God devises methods of redemption which are 
not only wholly ineffectual for the purpose, but wholly 


108 HVIDENOCH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


unworthy of God. It seems as if the sinful human 
heart had exhausted its ingenuity in devising bad and 
immoral instrumentalities for the effecting of redemp- 
tion. Cars of Juggernaut, human sacrifices, self-in- 
flicted tortures, immoral rites, pious frauds—who does 
not know the long catalogue? How sad it all is! and 
yet what a testimony to the universal recognition of 
human need. In all the error and vice of the heathen 
religions there is this appeal to God for redemption. 

The theistic philosophy of religion takes account of 
all these facts. They are part of the data upon which 
it bases its conviction that men must be redeemed if 
they are to attain the goal for which they were mani- 
festly created. Taking its stand upon its own true and 
satisfying doctrines of God and man, it is able to dis- 
cover the defects in the methods of the heathen reli- 
gions, and to separate the testimony to the universal 
need and cry for salvation from the perverted notions 
of how it is to be attained. Here is a race blindly 
seeking after God, if haply it may find him, raising up 
its hands to him in eager appeal for help. If that were 
all, it were pitiful. That there should be a God in 
heaven, nay, a God on earth, and yet no light and no 
help for men lost and perishing, that were indeed ter- 
rible. 

The theistic philosophy of religion is competent to 
disclose the need of redemption. Its conception of God 
as the holy, just, and wise Ruler of mankind, the per- 
sonal God who is not far from every one of us, affords 
good hope that God will bestow the means of redemp- 
tion. Theism gives such a knowledge of God that all 
methods of self-redemption—redemption by culture or 
reform or morality—must be discarded as manifestly in- 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS. 109 


adequate, and the fact must be recognized that only God 
himself can furnish the help that is needed. 

With this last fact we are brought to the line that sep- 
arates the philosophy of religion from the Christian 
theology. The universal religious experience must 
give way to Christian experience. Reason dealing with 
the universal facts of religion can go no farther. 


_LECTURE IV. 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 


WE have seen that the evidence of Christian experi- 
ence is based upon that element of Christianity which 
consists in the immediate and present redeeming activ- 
ity of God in Christ."| Christian experience itself be- 
gins when a man comes fairly under the influence of 
this activity, when the redemption is at work in his 
soul, and the divine power from which it proceeds is 
thus revealed. It is my purpose in the present lecture 
to trace the process by which the evidence we are con- 
sidering is first established through the initial expert- 
ence of the Christian life. In the next lecture we shall 
examine the growth of the proof in extent and cogency 
as the Christian becomes more and more fully possessed 
by the divine redemption. 

I enter upon this branch of our discussion with some 
trepidation. If I can succeed in so presenting the sub- 
ject as to make you realize that we are in the midst of 
a reali of spiritual facts, full of dignity and impor- 
tance, all will be well. But if, on the other hand, I seem 
to give you merely an edifying presentation of pious 
feelings and experiences, or a statement of doctrinal 
truths, what I have to say will be ineffably common- 
place. I beg you, therefore, to understand that our aim 
is not edification or doctrinal instruction. The work upon 
which we are engaged is one of the highest scientific im- 


THE GHNESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. EEL 


portance. Let us not unwittingly copy the unbeliever’s 
attitude toward Christian experience and treat it as 
though it were a matter of sentiment rather than a sub- 
ject of rational thought. We believe this experience to 
be real; our certainty of its reality is not less strong 
than our certainty respecting the other great facts of 
human experience in the outward and the inward 
worlds. We regard our faith as the most reasonable exer- 
cise of our rational activity. Let us have the courage of 
our convictions. If we are right, here is a field for 
scientific research of the utmost importance. If it is 
a noble thing for men, in their search for truth, to de- 
vote themselves to the investigation of the phenomena 
of the material and physical world, or of those of the in- 
ner world of thought, why is it not a nobler and higher 
thing to devote themselves to the investigation of this 
lofty sphere of spiritual reality, where God in his su- 
preme revelation enters our souls and moulds them by 
his grace? If we are not ashamed to make the Chris- 
tian consciousness a source of theology, why should we 
be ashamed to make it a ground of evidence? The 
world has a right to demand of us that we should give 
reason for the faith that isin us. Besides, even if our 
Christian explanation should prove inadequate, here is 
a realm of facts which demand investigation. Even 
unbelief no longer treats the experience of the Chris- 
tian as a mere delusion, but regards it as a series of 
phenomena possessing the highest and most striking 
psychological interest, to which it strives to give a 
rational, though, of course, naturalistic, explanation. 
We begin with the natural or unconverted man, with 
his natural experience of God, his sinfulness and need 
of redemption—the facts that have been established in 


112 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the philosophical presuppositions as stated in the two 
previous lectures. Our object is to trace the workings 
of such a soul, as God’s redemptive grace in Christ en- 
ters it, takes possession of it, and transforms it; and to 
show how this redemptive transformation is the ground 
of the highest and_most cogent proof for the truth of 
Christianity. I shall try to describe a normal Chris- 
tian experience, such as the Bible delineates, such as is 
narrated in innumerable books of Christian biography, 
and such as the ordinary believer recognizes as in the 
main his own. ‘That this is possible, in spite of the di- 
versity arising from different types of Christianity, and 
from the varying temperaments and circumstances of 
individuals, [ do not doubt.’ 

I. Let us look first at the preliminary experience by 
which the entrance into the Christian life is made. 
And here the first and essential fact which meets us is 
that the initiative 1s known as coming from God. The 
prelude to the distinctively Christian experience is 
God’s redemptive seeking of the soul. He comes with 
the arraignment, the demand, the offer, and the promise 
of the Gospel. is gracious working begins in what is 
known in Scripture and theology as the divine call. 

This fact of the divine initiative is all-important. 
The sinner who is redeemed by the grace of God in 
Christ does not first seek God; rather God seeks him, 
and only then does he become a seeker. Later Chris- 
tian experience reveals the fact that from the begin- 
ning of life there has been a divine seeking, and even 
that it goes back of life into the eternal purpose of 
God. This is the truth of the Christian doctrine of 
predestination or election, which, liable though it is to 
be misunderstood and abused, often as it has been hard- 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 113 


ened into a lifeless dogma, has a mighty significance. 
But we have now to do not so much with the eternal 
purpose, which only a mature faith can discern when it 
has advanced somewhat far into the knowledge of God 
in Christ, and of the Scriptures, as with the initiative of 
God through his Spirit at the outset of the Christian 
life. 

The divine initiative bears two aspects, an-external | 
and an, internal, clearly distinguishable, yet inseparably 
connected in reality, the former being the means or, 
medium of the latter. | 

1. We look first at the external aspect. This also is 
twofold, being effected through two instrumentalities, 
the objective Gospel or Word, and the witnessing 
church.’ 

(1.) The outward Word is an essential means. We 
saw in the first lecture that Christianity involves three 
elements, all of which are essential to its completeness. 
These are the divine revelation in its two forms of 
history and doctrine, or of facts and truths, and the 
present redemptive power and agency of God. The 
latter does its work only by the aid of the two former 
—that is to say, only thus does it do its work normally 
and fully. In order that men may enter into the 
sphere of Christian experience, they must have some 
knowledge of the divine revelation. The knowledge 
supplied by the general religious experience of men is 
not sufficient for this purpose. And when Christian 
experience has begun, it is needful to its right inter- - 
pretation, as well as to progress in it, that the divine 
revelation in both its aspects should be known and 
understood. We can conceive of the case of a heathen 
to whom the grace of God comes without the mediation 

8 


114 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


of the objective Gospel, who has never heard of Christ, 
but who, accepting God with such light as he has, is 
made partaker of the divine redemption, brought to 
the Father by Christ through the Holy Spirit, forgiven 
on the ground of the Saviour’s atonement, entering, at 
least measurably, into the life of holiness through the 
Spirit’s efficiency, and all the time ignorant of the 
great Christian facts. I say, we can conceive of such 
a case. To what extent such cases actually exist I do 
not undertake to affirm; but believing as I do, with 
undoubting conviction, that God condemns no man for 
ignorance or lack of opportunity, it seems to me not 
unreasonable to suppose not only that in some instances 
the germ of the divine life may exist in heathen 
hearts (that, I hope, is often the case), but also that it 
may arrive at a certain degree of maturity in this life, 
though of course the growth could never be what it 
might have been under consciously recognized Chris- 
tian influences. Now such a heathen would know, if 
he investigated his experience by the methods of re- 
flective thought, that he was a changed man, standing 
in a new relation to God, under the influence of divine 
mercy. But no examination and analysis of his ex- 
perience, without the knowledge of the objective Gos- 
pel, would enable him to discover the trinitarian char- 
acter of the divine grace, its basis in the atonement, 
and the truth of God’s redemptive kingdom. These 
realities would be implicit in his consciousness, because 
they would be the real cause of it; but there is no rea- 
son to believe that, left to himself, he would ever be 
able to distinguish them and bring them clearly before 
his thought. Nor should we expect to see such a per- 
son make any high attainments in the religious life as 


THH GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 115 


judged by the Christian standard. Ina word, his ex- 
perience would not be, in any adequate sense of the 
term, a Christian experience. 

What, then, is this Gospel or Word which is an es- 
sential means in God’s hands for bringing men into 
the sphere of Christian experience ? Though, broadly 
considered, it comprises all the facts and truths of the 
redemptive revelation, it is capable of brief and simple 
statement. It reaffirms with the strongest emphasis, 
what men already know from the natural revelation, 
the sinfulness, lost condition, and need of redemption of 
the human soul. Then it proclaims the divine love 
which would not leave mankind in their lost estate but 
provided redemption for them; and the historical 
facts of the redemptive revelation, God’s long series of 
redemptive dealings with the human race through the 
Chosen People, and the consummation of his grace in 
Jesus Christ. It tells of the incarnation and earthly 
life of the Christ; of his divinely human person, full 
of grace and truth; of his atoning death upon the 
cross ; of his resurrection and ascension to the throne 
of majesty on high ; of the mission of the Holy Spirit, 
through whom the Christ is laboring for the salvation 
of the human race. It makes the divine offer of for- 
giveness and new life to all who will accept it, an 
offer which looks forward to the complete deliverance 
of the sinner from his sin and his rehabilitation as a 
son of God in the perfection of the heavenly blessed- 
ness. It promises that those who accept shall have that 
personal knowledge of God and Christ which is life 
eternal. It gives the assurance of the future triumph 
of the Saviour’s kingdom in the redemption of mankind 
and the final subjection of Satan and his kingdom, 


116 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. . 


Such, in substance, is the Gospel or Word, as it 
has been preached in all ages since the days of Christ. 
‘The inspired repository of this Gospel and the record 
of all the facts and truths which constitute the re- 
demptive revelation is the Bible. The old theology, 


with its rationalistic tendency, failed clearly to distin- _ 


guish between the Scripture and the revelation and 
Gospel of which it is the inspired document. The re- 
sult in the spheres of apologetics and theology was dis- 
astrous. Not a few of the difficulties and hindrances 


against which the Christian church is contending to-day _ 


are traceable to this cause. Nevertheless, we must not 
ignore the fact that there is the closest and most vital 
connection between the facts and truths recorded and 


= 


° 


the inspired record, between the Gospel and the Bible. — 


It is true that the Gospel has existed without the Bible, 
and it is perfectly conceivable that it might do so again. 
Many souls are brought to Christ to-day, with compar- 
atively small personal acquaintance with the Scripture, 
by the preacher’s message, by the instructions of par- 
ents and teachers, by the reading of Christian books, 
and other similar agencies. Yet the fact remains that 
the Gospel depends for its purity and adequacy upon 
the Bible. The latter, as the divinely inspired record 
of the redemptive revelation, is the rule and guide of 
the church and the individual in all matters pertaining 
to the redemptive revelation. There is no reason to 
believe that the Gospel could be maintained for any 
length of time in its purity, if it were not continually 
drawn afresh from this perennial spring. Here we 
find not only the “ marrow of the Gospel,” but all that 
is essential to its understanding, and all that pertains 
to its application. It is enforced by precept and illus- 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 117 


trated by example. Not only does the Bible teach the 
way into the kingdom, but it is also the guide of the 
Christian to holiness, Christian service, and the heav- 
enly blessedness. There never was any Christian ex- 
perience, after the Bible had become the possession of 
the church, that could not be traced back to the Bible 
as its source; there never was any mature and com- 
plete Christian experience that did not grow out of the 
diligent personal use of the Bible.® 

Therefore, while for the sake of theological accuracy 
we insist upon the distinction between the Gospel and 
the Bible, yet for practical purposes we may say that 
the first great outward means employed by God to bring 
men into his kingdom is the Bible. I desire to lay the 
strongest emphasis upon this point. In presenting the 
evidence of Christian experience, I shall run the risk- 
of being understvod to teach that the Christian has an 
access to God and the Christian realities which renders 
him independent of the objective Word and the Bible 
which is its inspired source. I have no such heresy to 
advance. The only Christian experience to which I 
shall appeal is one that finds its origin and norm in 
the Bible, an experience shaped and interpreted by the 
Bible. To take any other position would be to desert 
the fundamental principles of Christianity and Prot- 
estantism, and to run into an unchristian mysticism. 

(2.) But there is another instrumentality employed by 
God in his work of redemption as it relates to the in-_ 
dividual; I refer to the witnessing church. The Gos- \ 
pel call comes to the soul through the agency of those | 
who stand in the midst of the Christian experience, / 
knowing it not only through the outward Word, but 
also by an inward spiritual acquaintance with its truth. 


118 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


God has seen fit to save men by means of men, and 
these the men who have already tasted and seen that 
the Lord is good. In this he has shown his divine 
wisdom. We are so constituted that we do not stand 
alone in our experiences. We drink at the overflowing 
cup of our fellow-men. All human progress depends 
upon this relation of man to man. It is, as we have 
seen, the ground of that diffusion of sin through the 
race as the result of which each individual, though not 
without his own personal fault, becomes himself a sin- 
ner. It accords with the fitness of things that redemp- 
tion should avail itself of the same relation to accom- 
plish its beneficent ends. It is thus that God reaches 
the sinful soul, preparing it for his inward call, and 
bringing that call home to it. 

In childhood, when we are so largely dependent upon 
others for our knowledge and beliefs, when the devel- 
oping personality is not yet wholly detached from the 
common life, the Christian experience of parents and 
friends exerts a powerful influence, the effects of which 
may endure through a lifetime. The child looks through 
its mother’s eyes into the sanctuary of Christian expe- 
rience, and in the godly walk and conversation of a 
Christian father has before it the indubitable evidence 
of the reality of the Gospel. In like manner the im- 
pulse to the Christian life comes through the instrue- 
tions of pious teachers, the persuasions of companions 
who have already entered the kingdom, the counsels 
and example of elder Christians. Especially is the in- 
fluence of the church as a corporate institution to be 
emphasized. The church stands for the reality of 
Christianity. It is the pillar and ground of the truth 
(1 Tim. iii. 15), because it unites and upholds the per- 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENOE. 119 


sonal experience of its members. This appears in the 
most important of its functions, the preaching of the 
Gospel. Preaching has no meaning unless it comes 
directly out of the living experience of the church 
and of him who in the name of the church presents the 
Gospel. One who knows, standing up in the midst of 
those who know, holds forth to those who as yet do not 
know, the message of salvation from the living God 
and the exalted Christ. The sacraments of the church 
are also a witness to the reality of Christian experience, 
an outward and visible sign of a gracious spiritual 
transaction between Christ and believers, intended not 
only for their immediate recipients, but also for the 
instruction of those outside, who are thus, as it were, 
taken into the circle of the inner Christian life.’ 

2. But the divine call bears an internal as well as an _ 
external aspect. The Gospel and the church are only | 
the media through which God speaks to the soul. He 
comes with a direct summons to the sinner. It is not 
merely that the latter finds in the Gospel a call to such 
as he and appropriates it, or that he discovers the 
voice of God in the persuasions of Christians. Te is 
conscious of an immediate and personal communication 
of God to his soul. Me has known before, as every 
man does, something of God in the common exercises 
of his religious nature, as the Absolute, the Creator, 
the Infinite Reason, the Holy One, the object of all rev- 
erence and worship; but now God reveals himself in 
a new aspect, as the God of redemption, bringing the 
saving grace near to him personally and individually, 
and pressing it upon his acceptance. This personal 
call is the great crisis in the soul’s life. When it comes, 
the sinner stands face to face with God, with the issues 


120 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


of eternity depending upon his answer. We may be- 
lieve that such a call is sooner or later given to every 
soul, though in some cases it is ae and does not 
prove eae to be an “ effectual call.” Making due al- 
lowance for the impossibility of knowing the objective 
Gospel, it seems reasonable to believe that even the 
heathen receives such a call, in which God comes into 
his consciousness with his gracious offer, and Christ is 
within his grasp, though he knows only that the su- 
preme good is being offered to him from above. 

3. The contents of the-internal divine call are not 
different from those of the objective Gospel. It is the 
Gospel made personal, applied by God himself immedi- 
_ ately to the soul. Wemay distinguish an arraignment, 
an offer, a demand, and a promise. 

First, the arraignment. God speaks to the man as a 
sinner, one who has rebelled against him, broken his 
law, contracted his just displeasure. Ie measures the 
character and life by the standard of the perfect divine 
law and shows how utterly they come short. He ad- 
dresses the conscience and brings home to it its guilt. 
The soul stands before him, lost, naked, helpless. The 
wrath of God is revealed against its unrighteousness. 

But the wrath does not stand alone; it is merely 
an element in the divine love. With the arraignment 
is coupled the offer of God’s grace. The God against 
whom the sinner has sinned comes to him in ‘fie 
compassion with the free gift of redemption through 
his Son. It is a personal offer. God does not make it 
in a merely general way through the Gospel, but im- 
mediately and directly to the individual soul: “ Here, 
O guilty sinner, are forgiveness and new life for thee! 
Jesus has died upon the cross for thy salvation ; he, the 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 121 


exalted Lord and Saviour, holds out these gifts to thee.” 
In the offer is included all that the sinner needs, resto- 
ration to God’s favor, the renewal of God’s image in 
him, the overcoming of sin, and the attainment of 
holiness, power for service, and the heavenly blessed- 
ness, 

The offer is accompanied by the demand. God does 
not bestow his redemptive grace upon unwilling souls. 
He conditions its bestowal upon the sinner’s 8 appropria- 
tion of it and lays uber him the duty of acceptance. 
“The will is the man.” In moral and religious matters 
the will is always the chiefthing. A divine gift is of- 
fered that may be accepted or rejected, a divine demand 
is made that the gift be accepted. Here again it is a 
personal demand. There is a direct inward call to the 
individual soul, and it is at the same time an impera- 
tive call that brooks no delay or compromise. Of all 
the demands that are made upon the human conscience 
there is none that will match this in its intense direct- 
ness and urgency. 

So we are brought to the promise. It is this: That 
the soul, if it AE the divine command and accepts 
the ie offer, shall have through its own experience 
the certainty a the truth of the esorl and the reality 
of all that God has offered through his grace. If it 
will but taste, it shall see that the Lord is good. It it 
will but put itself in the way of doing the divine will, 
it shall know of the doctrine. It is a promise to the 
soul that puts its trust in Christ that it shall not be 
confounded, but shall find in his grace the satisfaction 
of all its longings, its permanent rest and peace. 

4. What now is the effect of the divine call upon 
the soul to which it comes? In the first place, there is, 


122 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


on the part of the sinner, a realization of his lost con- 
dition. The sinful soul sees itself in its true relation 
to God—guilty, undone, helpless .It has no goodness to 
plead, it can make no atonement for its sin, it has no 
excuse to offer, it cannot hide itself from his displeas- 
ure, it cannot deny the righteousness of his punish- 
ments. I do not assert that this sense of sin is equally 
prominent in all cases where God’s call comes to the 
soul, or that it has the same meaning in those instances 
where the divine grace is rejected that it has where it 
is accepted. Nor do I assert that the knowledge of 
sin before conversion is comparable in completeness 
with that which follows this great crisis. All that I 
insist is, that in every normal experience there is some- 
thing that can be truly called a conviction of sin. Con- 
nected with this is a response to the divine offer and 
demand, a sense of the divine mercy of the former, and 
the reasonableness and urgency of the latter. 

But it is especially important for our purpose to no- 
tice that even in this preliminary experience there is a 
certain degree of knowledge respecting the reality and 
divinity of the facts which constitute the Christian ex- 
perience, a certain evidence of their truth, though not the 
evidence we are seeking to investigate. This is implied 
in what precedes, It seems at first to be at variance 
with the divine promise which postpones the knowledge 
of the reality and divinity of Christianity till after the 
divine demand has been complied with. The truth is 
this; there is a partial and preliminary knowledge 
based upon the pre-Christian experience; but this is 
altogether uncertain and inadequate as compared with 
the knowledge which comes through the actual Chris- 
tian experience itself. 


THH GENESIS OF THH HVIDENCE. 123 


Let us look for a moment at this preliminary knowl]- 
edge and the evidence that accompaniesit. The cail of 
the Gospel, as it comes inwardly and directly to the 
soul, is a divine call. We know it as such by the same 
criteria which evidence the divine to us in the other 
manifestations of God to man. It is because men have 
already known God in that religious experience which is 
common to all men, that they recognize his presence 
and power in this experience that is preliminary to the 
Christian. God does not come to the sinner whom he 
calls into his kingdom as a Being hitherto unknown ; 
rather he is recognized as the same God manifesting 
himself in a new form and for new ends. It is as a 
man who has already come in contact with the divine 
that the awakened sinner enters upon the new experi- 
ence. In the fact that the contents of the Gospel are 
thus brought with divine authority to him, the Chris- 
tian has a reason for believing that the Christian ex- 
perience which the Gospel describes, is real. 

Closely connected with this proof from the divine 
character of the Gospel call, is that from the adaptation 
to the sinner’s need of the divine grace offered. We 
know ourselves at once as members of a sinful race 
and as personally sinful, guilty before God, and resting 
under his displeasure. We are free, and because free, 
responsible. We know onr sin and guilt through our 
natural experience. Conscience condemns us, and de- 
clares us guilty before God. We know, too, through our 
natural experience what is our duty and what are our 
possibilities. We know that we were made to know, 
love, and obey God, and to love our fellow-men. The 
fact that we have lost our birthright and turned aside 
from our true career, does not make our duty different. 


124. EVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


We know that we ought to be the perfect men we are 
not, and to obey the perfect law of God. So, as was 
stated in the last lecture, the final word which natural re- 
ligion utters, is of man’s need of redemption. Now, the 
Gospel in its outward and inward call to the soul offers 
to us just what we most need, namely, redemption, a 
divine salvation, every step of which is so ordered as to 
make the consummation practicable and certain. It is 
a redemption through One who is at once God and 
Man, thus being God’s representative and ours; One 
who has, we are told, made complete atonement for our 
sins, so that God is ready to forgive all who will accept 
his grace, and be their Father. This Saviour, it is said, 
is upon the throne ; it is he who is speaking to us and 
working upon us through his Spirit; and if we accept 
him by faith, our sins will be forgiven, the Holy Spirit 
will enter our lives, our wills will be brought back to 
their allegiance, and through sanctification and service 
in communion with him we shall be carried forward to 
our goal and eternal life be perfected in us. 

This offer is congruous to our nature and our state as 
sinners whose great need is redemption. Here is a 
redemption which offers to accomplish the work. It 
gives us in promise all that we need ; first, forgiveness, 
the new heart, sonship; then, as the result, the new 
life and the progress to perfection. It offersa Saviour 
able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God 
by him (Heb. vii. 25). This congruousness of the offer 
of redemption to our need is itself an evidence of the 
truth of Christianity of no small value.° 

Nevertheless, this knowledge and the evidence based 
upon it, though genuine as far as they go, are not to be 
compared with the knowledge and evidence accompany- 


THE GENESIS OF THH EVIDENCE. 125 


ing even the lowest stages of the Christian experience. 
They afford a presumption rather than an adequate 
proof. They give the inquirer a reasonable basis for 
action, but not the reality itself. At this stage it is 
impossible to have a full proof of Christianity. Its re- 
demptive power is as yet untried, and the great dis- 
tinctive Christian facts are as yet unknown through 
experience.” Though the knowledge of this stage is 
based upon the divine authority, it is not personal 
knowledge; if accepted, it must be outwardly only. 
Moreover, and this is in some respects the most im- 
portant consideration, at this point the knowledge and 
evidence may be resisted ; and, so long as the soul hesi- 
tates to comply with the divine demand, they are prac- 
tically resisted. 

There is, then, only one way in which we can come 
to the real and adequate knowledge of the divinity and 
reality of the facts and truths of Christianity, and that 
is by trial. Here is a sphere from which we must re- 
main forever debarred, unless we enter it by the one 
door which the Gospel opens, namely, the door of a 
personal acceptance. The beginning of Christian ex- 
perience depends upon the will; it is a moral expe- 
rience. 

So the two stand confronting each other, God and 
the soul—God with Christ’s redemption, offering it to 
the soul. And here let me stop and once more beg 
you not to think that I am presenting doctrine or talk- 
ing sentiment; I am trying to describe facts, in com- 
parison with which all other facts are insignificant. 
This is an experience through which you all have gone, 
and through which every man must go. The world 
pauses to contemplate Cvesar on the brink of the Itubi- 


126 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENOE. 


con, and history finds no theme more high and worthy. 
But what was Rome compared with Christ! what sight 
is more worthy of the highest thought than the soul 
standing on the brink of its spiritual Rubicon, with the 
eternal issues depending upon its choice! The choice 
must be made. The soul knows itself to be free. It 
can accept or reject. It must do one of the two. It 
cannot turn from God’s method and devise a method 
of its own. The redemption in Christ comes as the 
only resource. This is the supreme use of freedom, 
the one use of all others for which it was made. It in- 
volves the supreme choice, to which all other choices 
must be subordinate. God in Christ, or self in sin ? 
It is an awful question. 

But we still stand on the threshold of the Christian 
experience. Though the experience of which I have 
been speaking transcends the ordinary religious expe- 
rience, yet it may fairly be said to be universal; we 
must believe that God draws near to every soul, and 
gives it at least the opportunity to accept his grace. But 
it is time to hasten on. We will not stop to examine 
the case where the grace of God through Christ is re- 
jected; we have to do here not with the pathology of 
religion, but with its normal conditions, where the gift 
of God is appropriated. So we are brought to 

II. The genesis of the distinctively Christian expe- 
rience and the evidence derived from it. 

1. The first point to be noted is the fact that this 
experience is attained only by the free act of the hn- 
man will. It is true, the fact is afterward revealed 
that the act itself is made possible only by divine grace, 
and that the free-will is but a subordinate factor in a 
process of which God is the efficient Cause. Neverthe- 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 127 


less, it is the essential condition of the consummation of 
that process, and we shall do well tolook at the human 
side before considering the divine agency upon which 
it is based. 

This necessity of the action of the will gives to the 
Christian experience and the evidence derived from 
it their distinctive character. In another lecture I 
shall speak of the will in its philosophical aspects as a 
source of knowledge. Here we have to do with the 
practical fact. In this consists the ethical character of 
the whole process. It is not possible to enter into this 
sphere except as God has opened it, and he has sus- 
pended all upon human acceptance. There is but this 
one way of salvation. 

Moreover, it is to be noted that the motive which 
leads to the Christian experience cannot be primarily 
the desire for knowledge and proof. These come as a 
result when the soul seeks first of all to be redeemed 
and to submit itself to the divine method of redemp- 
tion. Mere curiosity, intellectual interest, will never 
storm the citadel of the new life or secure its evidence 
of Christian truth. The poor in spirit who will sub- 
mit themselves to the Saviour’s conditions alone have 
the promise given to them. 

2. The act of the human will by which entrance into 
the reali of Christian experience is secured bears a two- 
fold name in the Bible and systematic divinity. But 
it is in truth one complex act. It is called repentance 
or conversion, and faith. These two exercises stand re- 
lated to each other, I am inclined to think, as choice and 
volition. According to the Catechism, “Repentance 
unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a 
true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of 


128 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, 
turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeay- 
or after, new obedience.” The same admirable symbol 
defines faith in Jesus Christ as “a saving grace where- 
by we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as 
he is offered to us in the Gospel.” The great and su- 
preme choice by which the new life is initiated on the 
human side is the turning from self to God, from sin to 
holiness. The first volition or executive act of the will 
which issues from this choice is the receiving and rest- 
ing upon Christ for salvation.“ But whether this ac- 
count of the nature and relation of the two be philo- 
sophically correct or not, the two are inseparable—the 
act of repentance and the act of faith; both make up 
one complex act of the will. 

3. This act of repentance and faith is often misunder- 
stood, to the great confusion of clear thought in Chris- 
tian theology and apologetics. Repentance is confound- 
ed with penitence, that sorrow for sin which accom- 
panies the change of heart but is altogether distinct 
fromit. In truth, the two, though so closely associated, 
are connected with different faculties of the soul. Re- 
pentance, as we have just seen, is primarily a matter 
of the will; penitence, on the contrary, is a matter of 
the sensibility. 

Still greater is the confusion with regard to faith. 
A very common definition makes it intellectual assent 
to the truth of certain doctrines. But while faith may 
involve such assent, this is secondary and subordinate. 
The rationalistic tendency so manifest in the theology 
of the last century nowhere comes more prominently 
to light than in this definition, inherited as it is from 
the Roman Catholic Church. It reduces the most sa- 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 129 


cred and spiritual act of the religious life to a matter 
of intellectual acceptance.’ Neither is faith a convic- 
tion of the reality of what is unseen, though such a con- 
viction is doubtless always present in true faith. The 
belief of the man of science in the existence of atoms 
and energy and zther, which he cannot see, may be a 
kind of faith; but it is not the kind with which we 
have to do in our analysis of the Christian experience. 
It resembles the religious faith in so far as both are 
concerned with a region beyond the discoveries of sense, 
but that is all; in their essence the two kinds of faith 
are radically different, in correspondence with the dif- 
ference of the two spheres to which they belong. Nei- 
ther is faith the spontaneous and necessary assent of 
the mind to the first principles of thought or the ac- 
ceptance of axiomatic truth. Such belief has no place 
in Christian experience, which is, as the terms imply, 
a region of empirical, and not of axiomatic, knowl- 
edge.” 

No, Christian faith is a much simpler matter. It is 7 
an act of trust in God by which—to recur to the words 
of the Catechism—* we receive and rest upon” Jesus 
Christ “alone for salvation.” It is primarily a matter 
of the will, though, like every moral act, it involves 
the whole man, intellect and sensibility as well as will. 
What is essential in it is the trust, the yielding of our 
will to God’s will, the acceptance of Christ as he is 
offered to us, the free surrender of ourselves to the 
drawing of the Father to the Son. 

Faith appropriates God’s grace. It has no worth or ) 
merit of its own, but is simply instrumental. Not that 
it is passive; that is excluded by the fact that it is an 


act of the will. But it is receptive rather than produc- 
9 


180 HFVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tive. It gives nothing of its own; it can claim nothing 
in its own behalf; it is utterly dependent upon God. 
The object of this faith is God in Christ offering his 
redemptive grace.” Before the awakened sinner is a 
region of which he has no first-hand knowledge, a sphere 
of experience into which he has never entered. Yet 
he knows of it through the objective Gospel and the tes- 
timony of Christians, and he has reason to believe that 


Christ is there, waiting to bestow pardon and eternal 


. 


life. He hears the divine call and the demand that 
accompanies it. He feels the strivings of the Spirit 
in his soul. There is but one way to test the reality of 
the proffered redemption, and that is by an exercise 
of the will, by repentance and faith. So the sinful 
soul obeys the divine summons, and takes the risk. It 
stretches out into the darkness, and lays hold upon the 
unseen Christ. It gives itself to him for time and 
eternity, that he may forgive its sins, and make it holy, 
and use it in the service of the kingdom, and bring it at 
last to the heavenly blessedness. 

4. The act of will involved in repentance and faith 


> consummated, what is the result? It is one and 


invariable, as all Christians will testify. He that seek- 
eth, findeth ; he that asketh, receiveth; to him that 
knocketh it is opened (Matt. vii. 7, 8). The unknown 
country is entered, and its reality is revealed by a per- 
sonal experience. The teachings of the Gospel and 
the testimony of the believing Church are verified by 
the facts. The divine call, with its offer and promise, 
is vindicated. 

It will be my task in the remainder of the present 
lecture to endeavor to describe the new world of expe- 
rience into which the soul enters by repentance and 


THH GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 131 


faith, and the evidence it furnishes of the truth of 
Ginietintity: 

(1.) The first effect of the great act of will involved 
in repentance and faith is the revelation of a new life 
in the soul. I say the revelation, rather than the begin- 
ning, of a new life; for I fait maintain the position 
commonly taken by theologians, and, I believe, taught 
in the Scripture, that repentance aa faith, aiid in 
the truest sense free, are the manifestation of a eng 
process of regeneration already begun. But while the 
origin of the new life thus goes back to the efficiency 
of ‘the Holy Spirit, its disclosure is conditioned upon 
the human act of will. 

This new life involves a radical transformation of 
the whole man. The strong language employed in the 
Bible to describe it is not too strong to truly charac- 
terize the fact. The change is a “new creation,” a 
“passing from death unto life,” a “resurrection,” a 
“new birth.” The subject of it has become a “new 
man ;” he possesses a “new heart.” It is, in truth, 
a complete moral and spiritual revolution. Some of 
our most thoughtful modern theologians do not hesi- 
tate to translate the biblical terms into the technical lan- 
guage of philosophy, and to declare that the result of 
the change is a “ new personality,” a “new ego,” with a 
new self-consciousness.”” We need, it is true, to be on 
our guard lest we take these expressions, biblical and 
theological, with absolute literalness. The bond of per- 
sonal identity between the old man and the new is not 
severed. The self is essentially the same, and this is 
true also of the man’s faculties and powers. The sub- 
sequent struggle with remaining sin proves to the Chris- 
tian’s sorrow that the “old man” is not by any means 


132 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


wholly overcome, but exists alongside of the new man, 
though dethroned from its dominion over the soul and 
excluded from the centre of the regenerate life. Ney- 
ertheless, these strong terms are more than figures of 
speech. They strive to express the exceeding greatness 
of a change that, to him who experiences it, is maryel- 
lous. Even the outsider sees something of it, and is 
compelled to confess that it is passing strange. 

This inward transformation is the beginning of re- 
demption. It is the breaking of that power of sin 
which has held the soul captive ; the restoration of the 
soul to its true relation to God, from whom it has been 
separated and alienated, and under whose displeasure it 
has rested; the return of the man from false ends to 
his one true chief end; the rehabilitation of the divine 
image in him; the opening of the fountain of eternal 
life. The man has “come to himself” (Luke xv. 17). 
He is in the way of realizing the “end immanent in 
his personality.” ™ 

Let us look at the details of this transformation as 
they manifest themselves in the principal departments 
of the human soul. ; 

(a.) A radical transformation has been wrought in 
the will. Here we include the repentance and faith by 
which the change was effected on the human side; for 
they, as has already been shown, are not only the condi- 
tion of the change, but also the expression of it. What 
is most prominent here isthe fact realized in repentance, 
the new choice of a supreme end. In the old sinful 
state the supreme end is self, or the world invits relation 
to self. The soul makes itself the centre around which 
it revolves. It serves and loves the creature rather 
than the Creator (Rom. i. 25). Moreover, inasmuch 


THH GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 133 


as all a man’s subordinate choices and volitions are 
affected by his supreme choice, all his voluntary acts 
and states are tainted by this perversion of the will in 
its highest exercise. Though the man may perform 
many true and right acts in the sphere of “civil right- 
eousness,” yet even these are to a certain extent vitiated 
by the central disease. But the first experience of the 
Christian reveals a complete revolution in his moral and 
spiritual being, and the shaping of his life to entirely 
new ends and activities. The supreme choice is fixed 
on God as he manifests himself in Christ. The centre 
of the soul’s movement is no longer the sinful self, but 
the Being who is the true life of the soul. The king- 
dom of God, which is the chief end of God and Christ 
in their redemptive working, has become the chief end 
of the newborn child of God, and this not only is his 


relation to God changed, but also his relation to his — 


fellow-men, who now, in subordination to God, are the 
objects of his love. Moreover, this new choice involves 
a resolute turning from sin and purpose of holiness. 

The new choice finds expression in repentance. The 
_hew volition is expressed in faith. In the sinful state 
the trust is in self, in the achievements of the sinner’s 
own moral life. In the new life the trust is in Christ. 
There is a complete submission of the will to him, a 
taking of him for the Master, a reliance upon his work 
for justification, 2 making of his service the business 
of life. The believer has his all in another, even his 
Saviour. 

But this is not all that is revealed in the transfor- 
mation of the sinner’s will. He discovers, through 
the repentance and faith which he has freely exer- 
cised, that the old sinful inability is gone, and that the 


i 


“tines 
{ 


134: EVIDENCE OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


chains which once bound him fast are broken. By the 
entrance of God’s grace into his life the conditions 
have been supplied which have rendered the free action 
of the will possible. He is no longer under bondage 
to sin, but free for the performance of God’s will. 
Not that the sinful nature itself is gone; that is not 
the case, nor will it be during the remaining earthly 
life of the Christian. But its power is broken. Sin, 
whether personal or corporate, is no longer the power 
“that dominates the life. It has been thrust from the 
centre to the circumference. It is doomed to defeat. 
It has the sentence of death in itself. The man him- 
self is freed, at least in potency and promise. The 
power that is working in him has given him. back his 
true self. He is able to fulfil his true purpose. 

(b.) The éntellect, too, has experienced a change. In 
the unconverted man all the intellectual powers and ex- 
ercises are affected by sin. Sin is necessarily the source 
of error; he who does not will rightly cannot think 
rightly. Even in the region of purely scientific and 
philosophical thought the disturbing influence of sin 
inanifests itself; prejudices and biases interfere with 
the processes of intellection. In the practical interests 
of life the influence is still greater. In moral and 
religious things the blinding influence of sin is simply 
incalculable. It is sin that shuts man out from that 
complete and adequate knowledge of God which he 
might have through the natural revelation, while it 
makes the contents of the Gospel to a great extent un- 
intelligible to him before God’s Spirit comes to his 
assistance. The things of the Spirit of God are fool- 
ishness to the natural man (1 Cor. ii. 14), not merely 
because he has not entered the realm of Christian 


THK GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 135 


experience, but also because his spiritual organ is dis- 
eased. The light that is in him is darkness. His eye 
is evil (Matt. vi. 23). He is blind, and his ears are 
dull of hearing. Consequently, as Paul says, he can- 
not know the things of the Spirit, because they are 
spiritually discerned (1 Cor. ii. 14). 

But the regenerated soul has experienced a mighty 
intellectual transformation. The scales have fallen 
from the spiritual eyes. There has been an inpouring 
of new spiritual and moral light. The eye has become 
single and the whole body is full of light (Matt. vi. 
22). A new sphere of knowledge and truth has been 
opened.” Self, God, man, the world, appear in new 
aspects. The truths of revelation, which before seemed 
dark and mysterious, now shine in their own light, and 
appear supremely reasonable. It is true that this change 
is in part objective, due to the new sphere into which the 
believer has entered, with its revelation of the Chris- 
tian realities of which I am to speak later. But this is 
not the whole. Without the intellectual illumination 
which is a part of regeneration, this new sphere would 
be invisible, even supposing it to be entered. It is 
because the eyes have been opened that the marvelous 
things are seen. So great is the change in this respect 
that it seems at first as if a new sense had been ac- 
quired, and a certain justification is given to those 
who speak of a faith-faculty distinct from the other 
intellectual powers. And yet a calmer and more care- 
ful investigation shows that it is only the old powers 
which have been relieved of their obstructions and 
quickened and enlarged in their scope.” 

(c.) Once more, the change is experienced in the fee- 
engs. The sensibility is that department of the human 


136 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


mind which is most easily affected by influences from 
without, and which seems to derive its whole character 
from the condition of the other parts of man’s nature. 
The feelings are the index of the voluntary and intellec- 
tual states, as well as of the instinctive and purely physi- 
cal. It is not surprising, then, that here the influence 
of sin is very great. In the unconverted man the im- 
pulses and feelings are perverted : selfishness, pride, ha- 
tred, fear—all the brood of evil emotions—find a place in 
the soul. But the change of which we are speaking is 
nowhere more marked, under ordinary circumstances, 
than in the sensibility. This most mobile and easily 
affected part of man, which takes its color and charac- 
ter from the state of his other powers, responds to the 
new influences. Before it was like “sweet bells jan- 
eled, out of tune and harsh ;” in the first hours of con- 
version it is like an exquisite instrument of music upon 
which a master plays heavenly harmonies. The soul 
enters a new world of joy and peace, whose light trans- 
figures even the old material world. In the striking 
words of Jonathan Edwards, “the appearance of every- 
thing is altered; there seems to be, as it were, a calm, 
sweet cast of appearance of divine glory in almost every- 
thing. God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity, and 
love, seem to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, 
and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, 
flowers, trees; in the water and all nature.” The 
soul goes forth in love to God and Christ. Especially 
does it eling to the latter with the warmest personal | 
affection. ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Cant. 
ii. 16), it declares. There is joy, rest, peace. 

(d.) Finally, we mark the change in conscience. 
This is no less wonderful than that which we have 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 137 


noted elsewhere. The disorder of the unconverted 
sinner appears in its most concentrated form in his 
conscience. This witness to the divine law, whose 
purpose is to keep man in the path of duty and in 
right relation to God, fails to attain its end, and so is 
at variance with the other powers. It judges and con- 
demns the sinful soul, declaring its guilt, and testifying 
to the divine displeastre. There are, it is true, times 
when its voice is silenced, for sin has the power tem- 
porarily to produce this result. But again there are 
times when conscience awakes to the most urgent ac- 
tivity and turns the inner world into a hell. In that 
arousing of the sense of sin already mentioned, which 
is the common antecedent of conversion, when the 
Spirit of God is working in the soul with the arraign- 
ment, the offer, the demand, and the promise of the 
Gospel, conscience speaks in trumpet tones of condem- 
nation. 

But in the great transformation which is revealed 
when repentance and faith have done their work, con- 
science also plays its part. Instead of the unrest, the 
condemnation, the intimations of God’s displeasure, and 
the threatenings of punishment; instead of that expe- 
rience that is in some respects even worse, the silenc- 
ing of conscience, there is now satisfaction and peace. 
Conscience no longer testifies to an angry God, but to 
a forgiving God, One who has removed our transgres- 
sions from us as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 
cili, 12). It is no longer arrayed against the other 
elements of our nature, but points in harmony with 
them to God and duty. 

Here, then, is the beginning of redemption in the 
soul. I say advisedly, the beginning, for all is indeed 


138 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


as yet inchoate. The transformation of the supreme 
choice has not yet brought the subordinate choices and 
volitions under the control of the new and holy pur- 
pose. The saving faith has not yet grown into the 
mature faith of later Christian life. The renewed in- 
tellect is not yet the perfect organ of the regenerate will. 
The realm of feeling, in which there is such a stir- 
ring of new life, is not yet brought into complete sub- 
jection to God and Christ. The appeased conscience 
has still a long struggle with sin before it. But the 
power of the old life is broken and the new is estab- 
lished. All looks forward to the complete renovation 
of the man. Eternal life has begun to work in him. 
The outlines of the divine image, which before were 
blurred, now appear distinct and sharp-cut in the very 
centre of his being. It is the beginning of redemp- 
tion, and contains in it the potency and promise of 
the complete salvation.” 

This is the first step in the evidence of Christian 
experience. The Gospel that was brought home to the 
soul by the divine call has proved itself true. It has 
stood the first test. It promised redemption, and here 
is redemption already initiated; eternal life, and here 
is eternal life begun; the restoration of the divine 
image, and that image has already emerged from its 
obscuration. This is not a matter of inference, not 
an opinion, but a fact. The change is far too great 
and radical to be called in question. It impresses it- 
self upon those who view it merely from the outside. 
The subject of it is filled and thrilled with the certainty 
of the transformation. To all objectors he says, like 
the man the Saviour healed, “ This one thing I know, 
that, whereas I was blind, now I see” (John ix. 25). 


THH GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 139 


He may not be able to give any scientific justifica- 
tion of his conviction, but he knows that it is well- 
grounded.” 

We cannot too strongly emphasize the importance 
of this first element in the evidence. It is the solid 
foundation upon which all the superstructure of the 
experimental proof rests.“ The divine agencies and 
personalities whose reality our argument aims to prove 
enter our experience from without; they belong to a 
transcendent sphere. Our certainty concerning them, 
like much of our knowledge, must be in part a matter 
of inference. But the transformation of the spiritual 
nature of which I have been speaking lies wholly 
within the sphere of our direct knowledge, in a region 
with regard to the contents of which there is no possi- 
bility of doubt. 

(2.) But this is only the first step. The proof is larg- 
er and more far-reaching. The Christian cannot stop 
short with the evidence thus attained ; he must proceed 
to use it in the attainment of new evidence. The fact 
which presses most strongly upon his attention is that 
this great change is not natural, that is, that it is not 
the result of his own agency or of any of the forces, 
spiritual or physical, operating in the world about him. 
To explain it by these causes is palpable folly. The 
persuasions of other Christians cannot have wrought 
such a transformation. Neither can the truth have 
done it by its natural influence upon the intellect. It 
seems at first more to the purpose to say that the 
man has done it himself, for there is a true sense in 
which this is actually the case. The repentance and 
faith, the new choice and volition, upon which the whole 
hinges, are human acts. They are also free acts; in- 


140 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


deed, the subject is conscious of never having been 
more truly free than in this supreme exercise of the 
will by which he has been transformed from a child of 
sin into a child of God. Nevertheless, he cannot ex- 
plain the great experience thus. He has not himself 
removed the inability which before his conversion pre- 
vented him from exercising his freedom. This has 
been done by a Power exter a to him, though work- 
ing within him, which has thus caused this great up- 
heaval in his nature and brought about this wonderful 
revolution. A great flood of spiritual influence has 
come down upon the human will and borne it up and 
carried it along in its powerful current, compared with 
which it is but a little eddy, though still free—so free 
that it might have held back the flood. The distine- 
tion the theologian makes between regeneration and 
conversion, the two aspects of the change cf heart, is 
verified by the Christian as he investigates his inner 
life, and he knows that the determining factor in the 
work is regeneration. The soul has been taken posses- 
sion of by a power greater than itself, and its freedom 
has been “ persuaded and enabled ”—once more to use 
a phrase of the Catechism—to make the supreme 
choice. 

And if the change in the will has evidently not 
been brought about by natural causes, the same is true 
of the transformation in the other departments of his 
spiritual being. The enlightened intellect, the reno- 
vated sensibility, the quieted conscience, are facts which 
point to the activity of a Power above nature. The 
new life is manifestly supernatural. Not without rea- 
son do sober-minded theologians like Isaac Watts speak 
of the ‘‘ constant miracle of regeneration and convert- 


ees 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 141 


ing grace;”” for if a miracle is an event in nature 


for the accomplishment of which natural agencies are 
insufficient, this wonderful experience may well be 
thus denominated. 

The beginning of redemption in the soul is thus 
evidently supernatural.** The Christian recognizes in 
it the manifestation of divine grace. Through this ex- 
perience he is brought directly into contact with God. 
Of this fact he can stand in no doubt. Here his pre- 
Christian knowledge of God comes into play, and that 
connected with the preliminary experience of which 
mention has been made at an earlier stage in the pres- 
ent lecture. He has known God before in nature and 
the ordinary religious exercises of his soul; he has 
known him still more impressively in the experience 
that immediately preceded conversion. Now he recog- 
nizes in the Power working in regeneration and the 
new life the same God. The facts can be ascribed to 
no other source.” 

(8.) Moreover, this divine Power revealed through 
the experience of regeneration is not far off but near 
at hand, not external to the soul but immanent in it. 
The new consciousness of the converted man reveals 
to him the fact that the Divine has taken up its abode 
in his inmost self. In a true sense the regenerate 
consciousness involves a consciousness of God. That 
the newly converted Christian would be able rightly to 
interpret this element in his experience without the 
help of the external Word, I do not for a moment 
claim. But with the assistance of that Word he has 
no difficulty in doing so. He recognizes in this in- 
dwelling God that divine personality whom the Bible 
ealls the Holy Spirit. He who is himself by way 


142 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


of eminence the //oly One has turned the soul from 
sin to the life of holiness. He is the cause of the 
whole inward transformation ; he is the present foun- 
tain from which the new life flows. According to the 
teachings of the Bible, wherever God comes into contact 
with his creatures, it is through the Spirit. It is thus 
that he is immanent in the material world and that he 
is the life of the sentient creation. It is through the 
Spirit that he dwells in man in his intellectual, moral, 
and religious exercises outside of the realm of redemp- 
tive grace. But in this closest contact of all which is 
established by regeneration, he comes into the most in- 
timate union. Through the Spirit God is married to 
the soul, and the Christian life is no longer a natural 
life but a life in and of the Spirit. 

Here, then, is still another element in the genesis 
of our evidence, the recognized presence of the Holy 
Spirit. This is the great and chief evidence of the 
truth of Christianity, the demonstration of the Spirit, 
the seal and earnest of the Spirit, of which the New 
Testament speaks (1 Cor. ii.4; Eph. i.18; 2 Cor. i. 22). 

(4.) But still more is involved in this experience. 
The Spirit bears witness to the reality and power of 
the glorified Christ. By him the Christian is united 
to his Lord, and has in himself the witness to his reality 
and living power. 

To understand this fact, let us recall the Gospel 
teachings respecting the Saviour. Before his death 
and resurrection he gave notice to his disciples that he 
should leave them, so faras his bodily presence was con- 
cerned; but at the same time he assured them that he 
would return to them through the Spirit, by whom he 
would establish his church, and throngh whom he and 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 1438 


the Father would abide in the individual Christian and 
the body of believers (John xiv. 16). By his ascension 
he withdrew himself from his disciples, in order that 
he might sit down upon the throne of majesty above, 
and as the Lord and Ruler of mankind carry on his 
work of redemption. The first evidence that he was 
what he claimed to be was the promised outpouring of 
the Spirit (Acts ii.). This was manifested by the mira- 
cles on the day of Pentecost and in the later ministry of 
his disciples (Acts ii. 33; iv. 10). Every such miracle 
was at once an evidence of tle presence of the Spirit 
and of the reality and power of Christ’s Messiahship. 
But this demonstration of the Spirit was not confined 
to these outward evidences. The presence of the Spirit 
as manifested in the new birth and the new life is the 
evidence to each believer of the fact that Christ is 
really upon the throne, working through the Spirit as 
his agent. This is what the apostle John meant when 
he said, ‘ He that believeth on the Son of God hath 
the witness in himself” (1 John v.10). As Baxter says, 
“none but the sacred Redeemer of the world, approved 
by the Father, and working by his Spirit, could do such 
works as are done on the souls of all that are truly 
sanctified.” *° 

With the aid of the objective Gospel the Christian 
has no difficulty in recognizing the living author of re- 
generation as Jesus the Christ. This is the work the 
Saviour did when on earth. All his preaching and- 
working had for their object the conversion of souls. 
This his miracles symbolized and pledged; this his 
persuasions and influence accomplished. This is the 
work he promised to do after his ascension: “ And J, if 
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 


144 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


me” (John xii. 32). This was the great object for 
which his Spirit was to be sent. Forgiveness must 
be the result of his sacrificial death upon the cross. 
Eternal life, which is his especial gift, is the life that 
was manifest in him (1 John i. 2). The bestowal of it 
upon men is the proof of his Messiahship. 

The work that has been wrought in the regenerate 
soul bears upon it the marks of Christ, and by them 
we recognize him as its present and ever-living Author. 
We see in the enlightened intellect, with its new world 
of spiritual truth, the work of Christ the Prophet, a 
work that could come from none but him, and which 
we know as identical with the work he performed on 
earth. In the quieted conscience we see the efficiency 
of the great High-Priest, the Lamb of God, who died 
on Calvary, and taketh away the sins of the world. In 
the renewed will, turned from sin to God, and made 
subject to the divine law, we recognize the work of the 
exalted Messianic King, who evidences his kingship in 
‘subduing us to himself.” In the new realin of feel- 
ing there are intimations of the work and presence of 
Christ in all his offices. Moreover, we know him in 
regeneration as the God-man. In the power he dis- 
plays we recognize his deity. In the nature of his 
work we see his perfect manhood. So far as the image 
of God is restored in the new heart, the presence of 
the perfect Image, even Jesus the Christ, is manifested. 
No Christian can for a moment stand in doubt as to 
Christ’s authorship of his new life. It bears upon 
it all the marks of Christ. And it is not Christ’s 
doctrine or example; it is not the posthumous in- 
fluence of Christ. It is the power of the ever-living 
Christ. The presence of the Christ, thus verified, is 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 145 


a spiritual presence. That goes without saying. It 
is not a visible or bodily presence, but a presence 
through the Spirit. But it is none the less a real. 
presence. 

The Christian knows himself to be brought thus into 
union with Christ. This is an essential fact in the ex- 
perience of the new life. The undo mystica is not a 
figure of speech but a reality. Through the Spirit 
Christ is united to the soul, and the soul to Christ. 
And this is not merely a matter of what might be called 
physical union, that is, of a bond lying out of con- 
sciousness, but a personal, consciously recognized, spir- 
itual union, a relation of person to person, spirit to 
spirit. There is, indeed, a clear recognition of the fact 
to which reference has just been made, that the hu- 
manity of Christ abides in heaven, and that the God- 
man comes near to us only through the ILoly Spirit. 
But the Christian does not understand this to make the 
union less, but rather more, real. The Saviour said 
that it was expedient for him to go away from his 
disciples (John xvi. 7). He implied that when he 
should come through the Paraclete, it would be to 
abide with them in a truer sense than was possible 
during his earthly life. And this is what the believer 
realizes in his experience, the presence of Christ in 
the closest personal union. 

In this union with Christ the Christian recognizes 
the establishment of a new corporate relation, which 
takes the place of, and is destined entirely to abolish, 
the old corporate relation to the fallen race. As Adam 
was his natural head, Christ has become his spiritual 
head (1 Cor. xv. 45-49). He is bound to Christ by 
the closest of all ties, and made a member of his body, 

19 


146 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


an integral part of the new race which he has founded 
through his redemptive work. 

The revelation of the Spirit in the new life of the 
believer is thus the evidence of the reality and power 
of the glorified Saviour.” 

(5.) Moreover, the Spirit testifies to God as the 
Father; or, to put the same truth into another form, 
through the Spirit and Christ we are brought_to the 
Father. The Saviour’s promise to his disciples was, 
“Tf a man love me, he will keep my word; and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him and 
make our abode with him” (John xiv. 23). The new- 
born Christian finds this promise also fulfilled in his 
experience; through the Spirit he realizes the indwell- 
ing of the Father, and the Father is known through 
the Son. The drawing of the Father to the Son 
through the Holy Spirit is thus consummated. The 
believer knows God as he is, not merely as the God 
whose love broke through clouds of just displeasure 
in the pre-Christian experience, but also as the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have empha- 
sized in our preceding lectures the natural or uni- 
versal knowledge of God. He reveals himself in the 
material world as Creator and Governor, and in our 
spiritual natures as the Father of spirits and the Source 
of intellectual and moral life. We know him as the 
personal God, the moral Tuler who speaks in our con- 
sciences and governs mankind by his providence. This 
natural knowledge of God is of the highest importance, 
if we are to make good the evidence of Christian ex- 
perience. But how imperfect is this knowledge of God 
compared with that which comes to us through Chris- 
tian experience, as we recognize in the Creator the God 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 147 


and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
mercies (2 Cor. i. 3). We take the Word here again 
as our guide, but only that we may identify in its por- 
traiture the reality of the Father’s character. The Son 
revealed the-Father when he came into the world and 
lived that wondrous life, at once divine and human. 
He could say with truth, “ He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father also” (John xiv. 9). But this revela- 
tion is external and second-hand until the believer, in 
his own experience, learns to know the Father through 
the Son. Thus knowing God, he recognizes in the 
Father the Source and Author of redemption, the eter- 
nal Ground of his being, the great End toward which 
his redeemed life tends.” 

(6.) The Spirit also bears witness to the forgiveness 
of sins. This great fact is involved in the quieted 
conscience, which forms an essential element in the 
changed heart. But in the initial experience of the 
Christian life it comes to light not merely as an effect 
but also as a cause. I wish to dwell upon it somewhat 
fully, because it involves in it all that is distinctive 
in the manifestation of the Saviour and the Father 
through the Spirit. We saw in the last lecture what 
sin is and what is meant by guilt. As the responsible 
authors of our own sin we stand defenceless before 
God’s law and God himself. Our relation is a per- 
verted one; we are out of harmony with our spiritual 
surroundings. Even our material environment is dis- 
turbed by sin and has become the source of misery to 
us. But what is worst in sin and guilt is the dis- 
turbance of our relations to God our Father, our soul’s 
true life. We rest under his displeasure. We realize 
it in the punishment that comes upon us through the 


148 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


operation of his law. But still more we realize it in 
our personal relations to him. It separates us from 
him and shuts us up to an isolated and selfish life. 
Moreover, it makes reformation impossible. The new 
life which is essential to salvation is a life in God’s 
favor. It cannot be begun or carried on apart from 
him, or while we are under his frown. The only hope 
“for our redemption is conditioned upon the possibility 
that somehow the guilt of sin may be removed. Apart 
from the Gospel no such hope is vouchsafed us. Natu- 
ral religion gives no solid ground for belief in the for- 
giveness of sin; on the contrary, reason alone, dealing 
with this subject of guilt, seems to declare forgiveness 
impossible. The justice of God appears to exclude it ; 
for, in spite of all that is said to the contrary, natural 
theology tells us far more of God’s justice than of his 
merey. Its dictum is, “ The soul that sinneth, it shall 
die” (Ezek. xviii. 4); and more than that it cannot 
tell us. 

But in the experience of the new life the believer 
receives the forgiveness of sin, and knows by the wit- 
ness of the Spirit that he receives it. He is justified 
by faith (Rom. v. 1). 

This boon comes to him through Christ, as a part of 
his union with Christ. Because he has become Christ’s 
and Christ has become his, the benefit of Christ’s aton- 
ing death has become his also. Of this atoning death 
he knows through the objective Gospel, which declares 
that by his sacrifice upon the cross the God-man made 
propitiation for the sins of the world (1 John ii. 2), 
that is—for it is not my purpose to advance here any 
theory of the atonement—made it possible and just 
for God to forgive the sins of men. In the first experi- 


THH GHNESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 149 


ence of the Christian he knows himself to be forgiven, 
and that not because he deserves it, but wholly on the 
ground of another’s work, even Christ’s; not because 
God is an indulgent Being who passes by sin with easy 
good-nature, but because Christ has made full atone- 
ment. He knows that he is not forgiven that he may 
sin again and go on in the old life, but because his faith 
and his conversion involve a new life, and because Christ 
stands ready to carry him forward in the path of that 
new life. 

The blessing of forgiveness is also known as coming 
from the Father through an act of justifying grace. 
Indeed, in this Christ and the Father are one. The 
consciousness of the Christian involves the full recog- 
nition of God’s mercy and holiness. It is not the 
mercy of the Christ as opposed to the justice of the 
Father, but the mercy and holiness of the Father re- 
vealed through the Christ and witnessed in the for- 
giveness of sin. In this experience of which I am 
speaking, the great, precious, soul-stirring fact emerges 
that God is reconciled and has made proclamation of 
amnesty to his rebellious subjects. The sinner’s guilt 
is gone. Not that he is no longer the responsible an- 
thor of his sin; that he must always be, and even di- 
vine omnipotence could not alter the fact; even in 
the glories of heaven he will still be the sinner, the 
unworthy soul that voluntarily set itself in opposition 
to God and law. In this sense he remains what he was, 
and must so remain; what has been done cannot be 
undone. Dut the forgiveness consists in the fact that 
God’s displeasure, which-gave to his guilt its sting, is 
removed. Te has peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ (Rom. v. 1). God is reconciled with him 


150 KVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


and he with God. The Father’s smile is upon him. 
He knows himself to be in reality, what he has al- 
ways been by birthright, the Father’s son, the heir of 
God, the joint-heir with Christ of the eternal inheri- 
tance (Rom. viii. 16, 17). This sonship, recognized as 
a present reality, isan essential element in the forgive- 
ness of sins. It is this that gives forgiveness its won- 
derful sweetness and significance. 

Theologians have been wont to describe justification 
in forensic terms, as a declarative act of God by which 
a new legal status is effected; and unquestionably their 
meaning is correct. But if we derive our theology not 
from scholastic treatises but from the experience of 
the Christian, read in the light of the Bible, we see 
that this mode of statement fails to do justice to the 
fact. The believer does not find himself merely in the 
presence of a Judge who has withdrawn the charges 
of the law against him; he stands before a Father 
who has given back his favor and confidence. <A. foren- 
sic judgment is always open to the suspicion of being 
a legal fiction. There is something external and unreal 
about it. It remains far-off, abstract, intangible. But 
the forgiveness or justification of which the Christian 
consciousness testifies in the first hours of faith is a 
personal matter. In it God comes near to us, and we, 
who were afar off from God, are brought near to him. 
It isnot so much a matter of the divine government 
as of God’s personal love. There is no suspicion of 
a legal fiction about it, because its reality is self-evi- 
dent. Neither does it shape itself to our thought as 
something that can be abused, an act of partiality, a 
permission to go on in sin. It is so connected with 
Christ, and grows so out of our union with him ; it is 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENOK. 151 


so manifestly the result of his worthiness, and wholly 
not of ours—that we are in no danger of mistaking it 
or taking an unworthy advantage of it. It is a forgive- 
ness that throws us upon our honor, making it impossi- 
ble for us to misuse it. It looks forward, too, so un- 
ambiguously to a holy life, is so clearly not an end in 
itself but a means to a higher end, namely, our com- 
plete redemption, that it is impossible to regard it as 
unethical. The prodigal is brought back into the 
Father’s house, the Father’s kiss of forgiveness is be- 
stowed upon him, the ring is put upon his finger and 
the shoes upon his feet, the fatted calf is killed for 
him, there is music and dancing and great rejoicing— 
and all that a new life may be possible, with new love 
to the I’ather, new obedience and service (Luke xv. 
11-32). 

(7.) Through the Spirit, who unites the Christian to 
Christ and the Father, he knows himself to be a mem- 
ber of the new humanity of which Christ is the Head, 
which constitutes the kingdom of God and finds or- 
ganized expression in the Christian church. He thus 
finds himself not alone, but a member of a goodly fel- 
lowship. It is in and through this connection with the 
kingdom and the church that the believer’s earthly ca- 
reer is opened to him. The work assigned to him is 
the Saviour’s own work of redemption ; the field is his 
own life and the great world for which Christ died. 

(8.) The Spirit is the pledge of the final blessedness. 
Upon this fact great stress is laid by the New-Testa- 
ment. The Spirit, manifesting himself through the 
new life, is actually present in the believer’s soul. He 
is thus “ the earnest of our inheritance” (Eph. i. 14). 
By him Christians are “ sealed unto the day of redemp- 


152 LVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tion” (Eph. iv. 30). They thus have in themselves the 
evidence of heavenly triumph. The eternal life which 
comes from Christ through the Spirit is already at work 
in. their souls, and they know that it will maintain its 
character as eternal and find its consummation in the 
blessedness of heaven, as well as in the resurrection of 
the body, which is the prelude to the entrance into the 
final state of the righteous. Watts has said: ‘The 
spiritual life of a Christian runs into eternity; it is 
the same divine temper, the same peaceful and holy 
qualities of mind communicated to the believer here in 
the days of grace, which shall be fulfilled and perfected 
in the world of glory.” * 

In conclusion, two remarks. First, the assurance 
which accompanies this experience is, in normal cases, 
of the strongest kind. Right or wrong, the Christian 
believes himself to be right with all his heart and soul 
and strength and mind. He has tried, and the trial 
has verified the promise of the Gospel. He knows; 
he is certain. Ee has not second-hand but first-hand 
knowledge. We shall see that the evidence grows 
stronger as time goes on, and the Christian experience 
deepens and enlarges; but from the first there is genu- 
ine certainty which rests satisfied in its possessions. 

In the second place, emphasis is to be laid upon 
the fact that the starting-point in all our Christian evi- 
dence, as it is derived from this initial experience, is 
the transformation of the inner man from a child of 
sin toachild of God. Itis through this that the Spirit 
and the other Christian realities manifest themselves. 
We claim no direct intuition of God. The witness of 
the Spirit to the Christ and the Father is through the 
change which they have wrought in us. So the witness 


THE GENESIS OF THE EVIDENCE. 153 


of the Spirit to our sonship is through the actual change 
from sin to sonship which the Christian has under- 
gone. I shall recur to this subject when we come to 
treat the objections to the evidence. or the present 
there is need only to mention it. 

Such, then, is the initial experience of the Christian 
and the evidence which arises from it. In the next 
lecture we shall consider the enlargement and strength- 
ening of this evidence through the progress of the 
Christian experience. 

I pray God that we may have that insight into the 
Christian realities which God’s Spirit alone can give, 
that seer’s vision into the things unseen and eternal 
which shall enable us to understand these great spir- 
itual facts and to appreciate their infallible evidence.” 


“LECTURE Y. 
THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 


Tue evidence of Christian experience is, as we have 
seen, in a true sense complete in the first hours of the 
new life. A real knowledge, with a corresponding cer- 
tainty, has been established, and the truth of the Gos- 
pel is indubitably confirmed. There are, however, de- 
grees of completeness in knowledge and in the evidence 
by which knowledge is vindicated. There is a com- 
pleteness of the germ and a completeness of mature 
growth. Now Christian experience is a matter of 
growth. Redemption is indeed established in princi- 
ple in the regenerated soul, but it is only by a long 
process that it permeates and takes entire possession 
of it. The “new man” is at first but a babe in Christ, 
and must grow up gradually into the perfect manhood. 
It may readily be seen that the evidence for the truth 
of Christianity advances part passu with the growth 
of the experience from which it is derived. In the 
present lecture I wish to trace the enlargement and 
strengthening of the proof thus effected.’ 

It is important to remember that the facts to be 
brought out here are also included in the promise of 
the Gospel, and that, in order to progress in Christian 
experience, as to entrance into it, the objective Word 
and the testimony of the church play their part as es- 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 155 


sential means. The Christian does not go on alone, 
without guidance from without, after he has entered 
the new sphere, but is still dependent upon his Bible 
and the aid of his fellow-Christians. 

I. We consider first the advancing sanctification and 
its evidence. We have seen that regeneration and 
conversion look forward to complete holiness. Re- 
demption is not a gift that is bestowed in its complete- 
ness at the start. Rather the gift is an endowment in- 
tended to be used, and having no meaning apart from 
its use. The problem of redemption is the complete 
restoration of the man, his reforming to the divine 1m- 
age, his renewal in sonship, his entire salvation, The 
kingdom of God is to be fully re-established in the 
sinful soul. In regeneration, and the divine forgive- 
ness or justification accompanying it, the moral obsta- 
eles on the divine side which stand in the way of the 
new life are removed, and on the human side the new 
direction is given to the life. But if this were all, 
Christianity would lose its high ethical character. Re- 
demption would then be a legal fiction rather than a 
reality. This, however, is furthest from being the 
fact. Regeneration and justification imply sanctifica- 
tion and complete redemption as their inseparable se- 
quel. They are only the beginning of salvation, the 
entrance upon the new road, the initiation of the new 
career. The Christian becomes such that he may work 
out his salvation (Phil. ii. 12). He is to overcome his 
sin, to become holy, to be the agent of Christ in the 
work of his kingdom. The life within him is to be a 
perennial fountain pouring forth more and more copious 
streams till it reaches its consummation in the heavenly 
blessedness (John vii. 38). 


156 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


The next stage in the evidence of Christian experi- 
ence is based upon the reality of what is thus prophe- 
sied in regeneration, the actual progressive achievement 
of sanctification. Astime goes on the Christian be- 
comes more and more truly the redeemed child of God. 
The growth and progress which are the mark of all 
normal experience prove the reality of the life and the 
truth of the Christian system. Evangelical theology, 
based as it is upon the teachings of the Scriptures as 
verified in the practical facts of the Christian life, insists 
that the proof of the reality of the believer’s faith is 
to be found in the sanctification of his soul. We in- 
sist that the same experience is to the believer the evi- 
dence of the truth and reality of Christianity. 

1. Let us look at the relation in which sanctification 
stands to regeneration. This has been in part antici- 
pated. The former is the progressive continuation of 
the latter. tepentance finds its sequel in the perma- 
nent choice of God and his kingdom, which domi- 
nates the Christian life and persists through all its 
changes, working for itself ever broader and deeper 
channels. This supreme choice bears the character of 
all ultimate choices. Such choices we are constantly 
forming and persisting in. They are made by an in- 
stantaneous exercise of the will, but they abide for 
years, perhaps for a lifetime. A young man, for ex- 
ample, determines to enter the ministry of Christ. 
The decision, though it may be the result of long med- 
itation and anxious asking of counsel and abundant 
prayer, ismade in a moment. But it is made for a life- 
time, and throngh all the vicissitudes of later years, 
the period of education in college and seminary, the 
active work of the ministry, that choice persists and 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. Lor 


shapes the man’s whole life.” Such a choice is no less 
free because it is permanent, and thus acquires a certain 
fixity and invariableness ; rather it is a supreme exer- 
cise of freedom, freedom in its highest power, rational, 
looking into the far future and laying hold upon the 
highest things. So the initial act of the soul in the 
Christian life is a free choice, momentarily made, but 
_of permanent validity, and merges thus into the perma- 
nent choice, equally free, always present, covering time 
and eternity, and apprehending the highest end of ex- 
istence, God in Christ and the kingdom of God. As 
time goes on, this choice strengthens, grows sturdier, 
more and more takes possession of the man, and roots 
itself in character and habit, as it is the nature of all 
permanent choices to do. 

Moreover, faith continues. In the progress, as in the 
initiation, of the Christian experience faith is the or- 
gan by which the realities of this transcendent sphere 
are apprehended and possessed. The new life is pre- 
eminently a life of faith. The initial faith, which was 
considered in the last lecture, has enlarged into a per- 
manent faith. 

This faith of the Christian life is not essentially 
different from the faith of conversion, through which 
comes the first great endowment of divine blessing. 
Though active, as all free exercises of the will must 
be, it is formal and receptive, an instrument that ap- 
prehends, a hand that grasps. It takes its color from 
its contents, and its contents are given it from without. 
It changes only as those contents change and grow, 
and as it enlarges to receive them and adapt itself to 
them. It never grows into independence; that would 
be to lose its essential characteristic. Of itself it is 


158 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


like space without objects in it, or air without light 
or sound. It never becomes meritorious, but always 
knows itself to be undeserving. There is a moral char- 
acter in it undoubtedly, so that there is a sense in 
which it might be called a good work; but it is not a 
meritorious good work. It is only a vessel, empty and 
valueless in itself, held up and filled by the bounty of 
another. Yet, though thus wholly without intrinsie 
worth, it is the essential condition of all that is of 
worth in the Christian life. No blessing comes except 
through the medium of faith. It grasps and abidingly 
possesses all that was bestowed upon it in the first ex- 
perience of the Christian—the new redemptive life in 
the soul, the divine agencies which originated it, the 
Spirit, the Christ, and the Father, the relation of son- 
ship, and the end toward which redemption tends, the 
kingdom of God. It is the organ, also, by which the 
Christian is put into possession of the profounder ex- 
periences that bring him into still closer union with 
these great spiritual realities. 

2. The central principle of the new life, in which 
the supreme choice which dominates it is most fully 
expressed, is love. This is the converse of faith, the 
communicative principle, as faith is the receptive. 

Faith, as has just been said, receives; it is formal, 
without contents, looking elsewhere for all that it has. 
Love, on the contrary, gives; it has contents, though 
these also in the ultimate analysis may be traced to 
God ; it lays self on the altar a living sacrifice. It is 
always active, a fountain from which living streams 
are continually flowing. Love has been defined as the 
principle according to which a being seeks and finds 
his own highest good in the good of another. If we 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 159 


see in the redemptive kingdom of God the highest 
good as revealed in the divine action, the believer’s love 
corresponds to this definition. So far as it is genuine 
love, and is not hindered by remaining sin, it “seeks 
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness ” (Matt. 
vi. 83). This is its swmmum bonum. The kingdom 
of God is the accomplishment of his will in the redemp- 
tion of the race. The believer’s love, therefore, is in 
this at one with God. 

Primarily it is love to God; but it includes love 
to man and love to self. By taking the kingdom 
of God as his highest end, the believer is able to 
bring his whole moral life into unity. The personal 
finds its true place in subordination to the general. 
As a fellow-laborer with God, the Christian seeks 
what God seeks, loves what God loves, does, as far as 
power and opportunity permit, what God does. Love 
to his fellow-men is not a mere benevolence. He 
looks at the world in the light of Christ’s redemption, 
and divides all men into two classes, those who have 
already been brought by the Saviour’s grace into the 
kingdom, men like himself forgiven and in the way 
of salvation; and those who are still out of the king- 
dom, men for whom Christ has died and whom he 1s 
laboring by all the enginery of his grace to bring in- 
to the kingdom, that they may be forgiven and saved. 
The former he loves because they are doing God’s 
work, because God loves them, because the special love 
of the Saviour is manifested to them. He could not 
love God without loving them. The others he loves 
because they are those whom God so loved that he sent 
his only-begotten Son into the world that they might 
not perish but have everlasting life (John ili. 16), and 


160 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


because Christ loves them with such tender solicitude 
that he is bending all his energies to accomplish their 
salvation. He could not love Christ, or have any un- 
derstanding of the work of redemption, without loving 
them. So that his love for his fellow-men thus finds 
its spring and motive in his love to God, not merely 
as the God of creation and providence, but especially 
as the God of redemption. 

Then the Christian loves himself. Outside of the 
life of grace self-love is not to be distinguished from 
selfishness. But when a man comes to love God 
and to seek the establishment of his kingdom as 
the chief end of his living, there emerges to view 
a self-love that is not only legitimate but obligatory, 
a recognition of himself as a part of God’s king- 
dom and needful to God in his work. The Christian 
knows himself to be under obligation to make the 
most of himself for God, and so long as he loves him- 
self in God there is no danger that he will abuse this 
love. This is what differences true Christian experi- 
ence from asceticism. The ascetic, whether heathen or 
Christian, thinks that he does God service in hating 
himself, in self-denial for the sake of self-denial, in 
bodily or mental self-torturing. But true Christianity 
gives no place to this morbid dealing with self. The 
Christian knows that he is, in virtue of his relation to 
God, a being worthy of love.* , 

3. [have spoken of love thus at length because it 
is so essential to the new life and so characteristic, on 
the human side, of all that is good in it. It is this 
that makes man most like to God. It is ina true sense 
the divine image in man. It is the prime characteris- 
tic in the life and work of the Saviour. Now in sane- 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 161 


tification love works itself more and more out into the 
life. More and more it becomes the regnant power. 
The supreme choice brings the subordinate choices and 
volitions increasingly under its control. 

(1.) There is an increasing holiness of character. 
Character is rooted in the ultimate choices of the soul, 
and especially in its supreme choice. Though this 
choice is present from the first, it is relatively weak 
and wavering. But more and more as Christian ex- 
perience advances it becomes strong and powerful. 
There is an increasing consecration of the whole man 
to Christ. There is a growing singleness of purpose. 
There is a strengthening taste for divine things. The 
heart, the centre of the life, the source of all its activi- 
ties, the centre of all its powers, is more and more trans- 
formed. The great end is pursued with increasing 
steadiness. The believer realizes his true self with 
ever greater fulness. 

(2.) There is an increasing holiness. of act. The 
Christian life is under law. It recognizes the divine 
will as expressed in the law as the rule of its procedure. 
As God is holy, so is the child of God to be holy (Lev. 
xix. 2). The moral law, which was already known 
through the natural religious experience, comes with 
a deeper meaning and higher sanctions. The Christian 
conscience declares no new law, but reveals in the old 
law depths which could not have been discovered with- 
out the renovating and illuminating power of the new 
life. It does not relieve the Christian from obligation, 
but, on the contrary, lays upon him new and stronger 
obligations, since the old inability is gone and the Chris- 
tian in his liberty as a child of God is enabled to fulfil 
the divine will. 

11 


162 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


And in every true Christian experience there is an 
advance in that holiness which consists in obedience to 
the divine law. More and more the will is brought 
into captivity to Christ. The law of love is increas- 
ingly followed. As the process of sanctification ad- 
vances the law becomes less and less an outward com- 
mand. It is assimilated, written upon the heart, fol- 
lowed not so much from a sense of duty as from an 
inclination and loving preference of the inner man. 

(3.) There is an advancing ability for Christian ser- 
vice and a growing faithfulness in it. This matter of 
Christian service, as it shapes itself in the experience 
of the believer, bears a twofold aspect—general and | 
particular. Tle knows himself to be called to do a 
work common to all Christians, the nature and limits 
of which are clearly indicated in the Christian calling 
itself. But he also knows that he is called to a particu- 
lar service, adapted to his peculiar capacities, indicated 
by his circumstances and opportunities, and laid upon 
him by the direct call of the Master. In this view of 
the subject even the ordinary vocation becomes a divine 
mission. The true Christian comes to understand that 
God employs in his redemptive work even those agen- 
cies which men call secular. And over and above this, 
the Christian knows himself to be called to work all his 
own by which the kingdom is advanced in the world. 

For this various service the Christian discovers in 
himself an increasing ability, if his experience be a 
normal one, and he carries out the vocation thus laid 
upon him with increasing success. All manhood grows 
through work. Self-respect, the consciousness of use 
’ in the world, the sense of power, come through honest 
labor, It is the law of our nature that personality is 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 163 


developed only through exercise. The talent hid ina 
napkin and buried in the earth must, from the con- 
stitution of man and the universe, be taken from its 
owner and given to others. It is by giving his life in 
the free service of God and his kingdom that the 
Christian finds his life. As he labors for Christ his 
Christian personality grows. All his powers become 
enlarged, his consciousness is filled with a richer con- 
tent, his sense of Christian self-respect and dignity is 
increased. With continued and faithful service comes 
new ability for service, and with it new opportunities. 
Moreover, this consciousness of increasing power and 
usefulness is accompanied by a consciousness of increas- 
ing growth in grace. Service reacts on character and 
accelerates the work of sanctification. The man in 
whom eternal life is stirring knows himself to be en- 
larging on every side. In the spiritual as in the nat- 
ural realin life generates life. 

(4.) There is an enlarging knowledge and wisdom. 
One of the first effects of the great change of regen- 
eration was to bring light into the sphere of the intel- 
lect. Sanctification progressively affects this important 
department of the human mind. The path of the just, 
as it opens up in Christian experience, is a shining 
light which shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day (Proy. iv. 18). The intellect is always profoundly 
affected by the state of the will. This is pre-eminently 
the case in the spiritual sphere. As the will is pro- 
gressively brought into subjection to Christ and made 
a will of love the eyes of the understanding are in- 
creasingly opened. As the organ of knowledge is clar- 
ified there is a growing insight into spiritual things. 
The truths of natural religion open up to the believer in 


164 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


new and wonderful meanings. The law of God reveals 
to him in ever fuller measure the nature of human 
obligation. He comes into a profounder knowledge 
of himself. He learns more and more to understand 
the Word and to use it for his needs. In the presence 
of the Christian realities he gathers that increasing 
knowledge of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the 
kingdom of God, of which I am to speak a little later. 
He learns that practical wisdom that finds its exercise 
in the duties of the Christian life. : 

4. I have spoken thus far only of the positive side 
of sanctification. But this survey would be incomplete 
were the negative side omitted. The Christian life in its 
growth is not an unimpeded evolution. It_is a growth 
attained only through conflict. The effect of regener- 
ation was to establish the new man in the centre of the 
believer’s life and to thrust the old man out from the cit- 
adel of the spiritual nature. But the old life, though 
thus expelled from its place and broken in its power, 
was not by any meansdestroyed. It remained, and the 
Christian life on earth was ever after a warfare. It is 
true there are Christians who declare that this conflict 
is often brought to an end during the earthly life by 
the entire triumph of the new man, who attains to per- 
fect holiness through an act of faith similar to that by 
which at regeneration he entered into the possession of 
the new life. But Christian experience, when unham- 
pered by a theological theory, gives no such verdict. 
It declares that the contest with remaining sin lasts 
through the earthly life. Indeed, those Christians who 
claim to have attained sinless perfection prove, when 
their doctrine is examined, to have only reached a stand- 
ard of perfection erected by themselves and lower 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 165 


than the perfect standard of the law of God. The nor- 
mal Christian experience is to the end a warfare, a 
deadly struggle with remaining sin. 

In this contest there are fluctuations. There are 
times when the old nature temporarily gets the upper- 
hand. There are falls and failures. There are times 
when the light of the new life is darkened and the 
clouds settle down thick upon the soul. 

But it is characteristic of the genuine Christian ex- 
perience that it is, on the whole and progressively, a 
triumph. There may be eddies in the stream, where 
the current flows backward, but the main sweep of 
the stream is forward. Sin is overcome and _ holiness 
advances. The old man, though not yet utterly de- 
stroyed, becomes more and more a conquered enemy, 
powerless for harm. The periodical revivals of his 
power leave him always weaker. He carries around in 
him the sentence of death. 

It is to be noted that not only is the continuance of 
the struggle between the new man and the old charac- 
teristic of genuine Christian experience, but also that it 
is the condition of advance in sanctification. That dis- 
cipline which is so important an element in the Chris- 
tian life is thus attained. It is needful that the soldier 
of Christ should endure hardness. It is thus that he 
becomes strong. 

5. The Christian has thus in the advancing sanctifi- 
cation of his nature the indubitable evidence that the 
redemption promised by the Gospel is real. The life 
which manifested itself so strikingly in regeneration 
has proved its reality by its growth. The seed which 
was sown in that great primal change has shown by its 
germination and development that it was living. The 


166 HVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


end immanent in the human personality is being pro- 
gressively attained. The man who came to himself 
when he gave his heart to God and accepted the Chris- 
tian vocation finds himself realizing the highest possi- 
bilities of his nature. The restored image of God, 
which at first was_only traced in outline, is now being 
filled up in its details. Thus the proof that was strong 
in the first hours of the new life gathers strength as 
the process advances. ‘It comes to pass,” says Dr. 
Watts, “that when Christians have grown to a good 
degree of strength in faith, and great measures of holi- 
ness in this world, all the temptations that they meet 
with to turn them aside from the doctrines of Christ 
are esteemed but as straw and stubble; they cannot 
move nor stir them from the faith that is in Jesus, be- 
cause the evidence hath grown strong with years; and 
as they have attended long upon the ministration of 
this Gospel they have found more and more of this 
eternal life wrought in their hearts.”* What is true 
of all who have progressed far in holiness is measurably 
true of every Christian who has been growing in grace. 
The increasing life within is an irrefutable evidence of 
the reality and truth of the Christianity which gives 
rise to it. 

If. But this is not all. The process of sanctification 
by which the Christian’s redemption is carried forward 
to completion furnishes an increasing knowledge and evi- 
dence of the reality of the divine Causes that are at work. 

1. There could be no doubt at first that the work 
was divine, but the evidence that this is the case grows 
stronger and more undeniable. No fact is pressed 
more strongly upon the believer’s attention than that 
of his entire dependence upon a higher Power for his 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 167 


sanctification. More and more clearly he sees that the 
progressive redemption is not his own work. ‘There 
is, indeed, a true sense in which he is the author of 
it. It is accomplished through his will, which in 
choice and act is constantly active in the new life. But 
while he works out his own salvation with fear and 
trembling, he is conscious that a higher Power is 
working in him to will and to do of his good pleasure 
(Phil. ii. 12, 13). His will is merely the medium of a 
divine Will. That receptiveness of faith of which I 
have spoken points to the true nature of the Christian 
life ; it is a divine gift, the work of divine hands, not 
only in its origin but also in all its progress. It never 
ceases to be a wonder; it is, to repeat the phrase of 
Watts quoted in the last lecture, the “constant mir- 
acle” of divine grace.* The effect of atrue Christian 
experience, as it advances from stage to stage in its de- 
velopment, is not to make the subject regard himself 
as the author of the great work that is going on with- 
in; on the contrary, he grows constantly more humble 
and self-distrustful, and more convinced that all his 
sufficiency is from God. His declaration is, ‘“‘ Without 
him I ean do nothing” (John xy. 5); “ Nevertheless I 
live, yet not I” (Gal. ii. 20). He traces his failures and 
falls to his forgetfulness of his dependence upon the 
divine help. He sees the greatest advancement just 
when he gives himself up most entirely to be moulded 
by God. He perceives that while he is truly free in 
the Christian life, yet the use of his freedom con- 
sists chiefly in keeping himself in constant rapport 
with the divine life working in him, or rather, in let- 
ting that life maintain its contact with him and play 
freely through him. 


168 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


In this consists the great difference between true 
Christian experience and every other form of religion 
that lays claim to the Christian name. The moralism 
which makes a man his own Saviour is wholly alien to 
the Christianity which makes the man the undeserv- 
ing recipient of a divine redemption. The pantheistic 
religion which deifies man, and thus makes his moral 
and spiritual exercises divine because human, does no 
better. Both utterly fail to bring the soul into that 
contact with God which is the foundation of the evi- 
dence I am endeavoring to expound. They leave it 
self-satisfied, isolated, separated from God. Christian- 
ity proves its truth by bringing the soul more and more 
into contact with the redemptive power of God. 

2. But the progressive redemption does not merely 
reveal the fact that a divine Power is at work; it also 
discloses more and more fully the nature at that 
Power. As the Christian comes increasingly to under- 
stand the great change that is going on within him, 
more and more, by the help of the guiding and inter- 
preting Word and the experience of his fellow-Chris- 
tians, is he enabled to discover the nature and character 
of the divine Being who is the Author of the change, 
and thus does the evidence for the truth of the Gospel 
become ever stronger. The first effect of the redemp- 
tion wrought by God in the soul is, as we saw in the 
last lecture, to reveal him in his trinitarian character as 
Spirit, Christ, and Father. We may now say that the 
result of the advancing experience is to make this more 
and more certain and distinct. The Christian life is a 
progressive experience of the reality and power of God 
in the threefold distinction of Father, Christ, and Spirit. 
These are the fixed points in the inner world of the 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 169 


Christian, the sun and stars of his spiritual firmament. 
As the mists and clouds produced by sin clear away, 
these realities shine out in their intrinsic radiance. 
The Christian would as soon think of doubting his own 
existence as of calling in question the verity of these 
facts. ; 

We begin, as before, with the Holy Spirit. He is 
pre-eminently the immanent God. He is the divine 
life as it comes directly in contact with the soul and 
makes it God’s dwelling-place. It is his causal efficiency 
which we recognize immediately in the effect. The 
fact already emphasized, that the true causality in the 
new life is not human but divine, finds its most direct 
illustration in the Christian’s experience of the presence 
and power of the Spirit. Whenever, in the investi- 
gation of sanctification, we impinge upon the divine 
authorship of the process, we are brought into contact 
with the Holy Spirit. In all the stirrings of his new 
life the Christian recognizes this divine source of 
power. More and more he is brought to realize his 
utter dependence upon this inward abiding Personality. 
This is the fountain from which all that is good in 
him flows. This is the source from which come all 
right and holy impulses. This is the Helper by whose 
guidance he is directed. 

It is hard to put into words all that belongs to this 
profound experience, to show how the Christian, as the 
life within progresses, becomes more and more the man 
of the Spirit, and more and more knows himself to be 
such. It is one of those facts which we fail to describe 
aright on account of their very simplicity and their 
fundamental character. Yet all Christians know what 
is meant, for all have the experience on which it rests. 


170 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Just as the self-trust of unscriptural forms of Christian- 
ity leads to a denial of its truly divine basis, so it leads 
to a denial of the truth and reality of the doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit. A man cannot in any true sense hold 
this doctrine who has not had, and is not progressively 
having, the experience that underlies it. The man 
who has the experience cannot doubt the truth of the 
doctrine. Indeed, it is not a doctrine to him but a fact ; 
he knows that the Holy Spirit is the source of all his 
religious life. Accordingly, as the years of Christian 
experience advance, the believer is more and more pro- 
foundly possessed with the conviction of the reality and 
power of this indwelling divine Personality. 

This wonderful experience is best described in serip- 
tural terms. The believer recognizes in it what the 
Word has declared to be the relation of the Christian 
to the Spirit. He lives and walks by the Spirit (Gal. 
vy. 25). The Spirit dwells in him (Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor. 
iii. 16). He is led by the Spirit (Rom. vii. 14). He 
is sanctified by the Spirit (1 Cor. vi. 11; 1 Pet. i. 2). 
He is strengthened with power through the Spirit in 
his inner man (Eph. iii. 16). By the Spirit he mor- 
tifies the deeds of the body (Rom. viii. 18). The 
graces of the Christian life—love, joy, peace, long-suf- 
fering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, tem- 
perance—-are fruits of the Spirit (Gal. v. 22). By the 
Spirit the Christian is increasingly capacitated for the 
special duties of his Christian calling, so that what- 
ever gifts of service he possesses are to be regarded as 
charismata of the Spirit (Rom. xii. 8-8; 1 Cor. xii. 4—- 
13). When the Christian prays, he is borne up upon 
a flood of spiritual life which he recognizes as the 
Spirit helping his infirmities (Rom. viii. 26, 27). The 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. ie 


Spirit is the source of his increasing spiritual knowl- 
edge and illumination (1 Jolin ii. 20). As he reads 
his Bible he recognizes in it the inspiration of the 
same Spirit who is guiding him into the truth. But 
while dependent upon the teachings of Christ as they 
are recorded in the New Testament, the Christian finds 
them confirmed by the Spirit within, and recognizes in 
this Spirit, whom he knows to be the Spirit of Christ, 
a source, in a true sense independent, of knowledge and 
truth. Milton represents the Saviour as saying, 


“God hath now sent his living oracle 
Into the world to teach his final will, 
And sends his Spirit of truth henceforth to dwell 
In pious hearts, an inward oracle 
To all truth requisite for men to know.” ° 


By this “inward oracle” the Christian is guided and 
enlightened. Finally, through the Spirit the Christian 
waits by faith for the hope of righteousness (Gal. v. 
5). In a word, in all the advancing work of sanctifica- 
tion he is the spiritual man (1 Cor. ii. 15).’ 

This indwelling of the Spirit, more and more fully 
recognized by the Christian in the process of sanctifi- 
cation, is the great proof of the truth of Christianity. 
The believer has ‘ the witness in himself” (1 John v. 
10). 

3. But there is, also, an increasing knowledge of 
Christ and evidence of his living reality and power in- 
volved in Christian experience. This knowledge and 
evidence comes to us through the Spirit. We saw in 
the last lecture ° how the Spirit, as manifested in the 
new life, is the great proof that Christ is upon the 


172 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


throne, and the means by which the believer is united 
to him. In the progress of his experience the believer 
finds this evidence growing constantly stronger and 
more convincing. We saw that the initial experience 
of the Christian life, the regeneration of the soul, bore 
upon it the marks of Christ’s efficiency, his deity and 
his humanity, his prophetical, priestly, and kingly 
working. The same sure manifestations of the Sav- 
iour’s power and grace appear with increasing distinet- 
ness in the progress of sanctification. It is not the 
power of Christ’s doctrine which we recognize in it but 
the power of the living Christ. It is not his example 
but his present grace that more and more transforms 
the Christian. The redemption that is at work in the 
soul bears the marks of Christ’s handiwork upon it. 
It is truly a Christ-life. Especially is it the work of 
the Saviour, who died for our sins upon the cross and 
wrought for us a perfect atonement. He whosits upon 
the throne and rules as the exalted King is also the 
Lamb that was slain. His work is redemptive. The 
new life is a life that in all its stages declares to us the 
blood of Christ shed for our salvation. The divine 
image that is being more and more completely restored 
is the image of Christ. Christ is being formed within ; 
he is the model after which the new manhood is being 
patterned. Baxter finely says, “If the devil, or any 
seducer, would draw you to doubt whether there be 
indeed a Christ or not, and whether he did rise 
again, and be now living, what an excellent advan- 
tage is it against this temptation, when you can re- 
pair to your own hearts, and there find a Christ 
within you—I mean his Spirit possessing you, and 
ruling you for him; and his very nature and image 


THE GROWTH OF THE EHVIDENCE. 175 


in you, and such workings of his upon you, which 
none can imitate.” ° 

The Christian learns to recognize with increasing fa- 
miliarity the hand that is moulding him.” Here again 
he uses the objective Gospel. It is the Christ on earth, 
the God-man in his humiliation, from whom he learns 
to know the Christ upon the throne. But the process 
is not one of mere imagination, by which the qualities 
of the historical Christ are transferred to an abstract 
and unreal Being. Rather there is a recognition of 
those qualities which are described in the Word in 
the real Being revealed through the work of the Spirit. 
This last is the portrait by which we identify the orig- 
inal.! Because we see in our souls works like those 
Christ performed on earth, only in some respects 
greater and more wonderful, we know that it is Christ 
who is operating upon us through his Spirit. To quote 
once more the words of Baxter: “ O, saith the sancti- 
fied soul, have I felt Christ relieving me in my lost con- 
dition, binding up my broken heart, delivering me from 
my captivity, reconciling me to God, and bringing me 
with boldness into his presence whom I had offended, 
and saving me from God’s wrath, and law, and my 
own conscience; and now, after all this, shall I doubt 
whether there be a Christ, or whether he be alive! 
Have I felt him new creating me, and making all things 
new to me, so strangely opening my darkened eyes, and 
bringing me from darkness into his marvelous light, 
and from the power of Satan to God; binding the 
strong man, and casting him out, and bringing down 
the strongest holds in my soul; and yet I shall ques- 
tion whether there be a Christ or not? Hath he made 
me love the things which I hated, and hate that which 


174. EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


IT loved? Hath he given me snch a taste of the powers 
of the world to come, and possessed me with the hopes 
of glory with himself, and given me a treasure and 
portion in God, and set my heart where my treasure is, 
and caused me in some measure to have my conversa- 
tion in heaven; and yet shall I doubt again whether 
he be the Christ ?” ” 

In the same way the Christian becomes increasingly 
certain of his union with Christ through the Spirit. 
If the old life was a selfish and isolated one, the new, 
as has been shown, is a dependent one, and just as fast 
as sin is driven out and holiness established the depen- 
dence increases. The source of life upon which the 
Christian depends is primarily the Spirit, but this is 
the Spirit of the glorified Saviour and unites us with 
him. More and more fully we come to see that it is 
Christ who is our life, and that our true life is hid 
with him. The believer is not a mere individual, but 
a member of Christ, a branch of the true Vine, united 
with him in the closest and most intimate relations. 
The new manhood is rooted in the life of the Saviour. 
This union, when first established, was the ground of 
the divine forgiveness of sin; because the sinner had 
become one with the Saviour, the atoning sacrifice of 
the latter could be taken as if it were the sinner’s own. 
In the sequel of the new life the union is the ground 
of sanctification; the righteousness of Christ is im- 
parted to the believer as an inherent righteousness 
through the Spirit. 

At first the Christian can have only a vague and un- 
satisfactory knowledge of the marvelous reality in- 
volved in his connection with Christ. From the nat- 
ure of the case the “mystic union” has a mysterious 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 175 


element init. It can never be fully comprehended. 
But it is more and more fully apprehended. Taken 
merely as an hypothesis propounded by the Word, there 
would still be so much in the experience of the Chris- 
tian which it would explain that there would be good 
reason for accepting it as true. But the believer comes 
to know it as far more than a verified hypothesis. He 
recognizes it as a fact that becomes increasingly mani- 
fest as the divine redemption is progressively wrought 
out within. 

But more than this: there is an increasing person- 
al knowledge of the Saviour. The relation between 
the Christian and his Master is one of communion and 
fellowship. It is not one-sided but reciprocal. The 
Christ who—to use Paul’s language—dwells in the 
heart by faith (Eph. iii. 17) is there, through the me- 
diation of the Spirit, as a personal presence, making 
himself known by acts and influences which are the 
signs of a personal communication. I shall recur to 
this subject later, when speaking of the life of com- 
munion with God. Here let it suffice to assert the fact 
as an integral part of the Christian’s experience, and to 
insist that it is a matter of increasing knowledge. 

This increasing knowledge of the Christ is the cen- 
tral fact in the experience of which we are speaking. 
So evident is this in the ordinary ongoings of the re- 
newed soul that Christians are apt to overlook the in- 
termediate stages and to speak of their faith and new 
life as immediately ‘attached to Christ." And in a 
sense they are right; for although we know the glori- 
fied Saviour only through his Spirit, and the Spirit 
only through the redemption wrought in the soul, yet 
these intermediate agencies do not separate, but rather 


176 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


unite the Christian more closely to Christ. Faith 
clings with ever closer grasp to the God-man, who re- 
veals God, and yet is man in all the intimacy and near- 
ness of human brotherhood, our Atoner, our Mediator 
with God, our Master, our Example. He is not a mere 
ideal, such as Kant has described in his /eelegion im- 
nerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, a Christ who 
has no actual and personal existence, whose very earth- 
ly existence as described in the Gospel is a matter 
of indifference ; but a present Christ, with whom the 
believer is united in a fellowship that is constantly be- 
coming closer, and that grows out of a union in the 
depths of his spiritual being more intimate than any 
physical bond. This Christ upon the throne, who is 
ruling the whole world and carrying on the work of his 
kingdom on the world-wide scale; this Christ, from 
whom are all things and to whom are all things, the 
alpha and the omega, the beginning and the goal, is 
the believer’s nearest friend and most constant com- 
panion. Te satisfies the double need of our souls, for 
communion with the Absolute and for the realization 
of that communion through humanity. In him the 
believer finds his Ilead, his completion ; the perfection 
of his personality is in Christ: 


** Christ, of all his hopes the Ground ; 
Christ, the Spring of all his joy.” 


More and more, Christ becomes his all in all. Ashe 
looks forward to the other world Christ fills the hori- 
zon. 

4. Moreover, the Christian comes increasingly to 
know the Father. To him, as we have seen, the Spir- 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. LTE 


it bears witness, as well as to the Christ, and the 
Father is known through the Son. We have seen also 
that to know God outside of the sphere of redemption 
is not to know him in the deeper meaning of the term 
Father. It is only through the Son that we know the 
Father (Matt. xi. 27). And as the Christian more and 
more fully learns of Christ through the Spirit, the re- 
ality and character of the Father dawn upon him with 
growing clearness. It is when we have begun to real- 
ize through the experience of the Christian life that 
God is love (1 John iv. 8), that we get an insight into 
this deepest depth of religious truth. To know that 
in its centre, in its inmost heart, the Deity is gracious 
and full of compassion, though holy and just, this is to 
know the Father. And so this knowledge generally 
lags behind the rest. It is the pure in heart who see 
God (Matt. v. 8), and only increasing sanctification af- 
fords this knowledge. It is God as Father whose face 
is hid from us, who dwelleth in the light which no man 
can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can 
see (1 Tim. vi. 16). At the best we shall see him in 
the present state as in a mirror darkly (1 Cor. xiii. 12). 
Only in the other world, when sanctification is com- 
plete, shall we see lim face to face and know him even 
as we are known (ibid.). I know the view of popular 
theology is different. According to it, the knowledge 
of the Father is the first and easiest part of Christian 
experience, while that of the Spirit is the hardest. 
But experience itself puts it the other way, and it is 
confirmed by the Word. 

The Spirit’s witness to the believer’s sonship, which 
continues throughout the Christian life and partakes 
of its growth and progress, is connected with an in- | 


see 


178 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


creasing knowledge of God the Father. The objective 
basis of this witness is, as has been noticed, the work 
wrought by God in the soul." Sanctification, as it car- 
ries forward the process of redemption and imprints 
the divine image more clearly upon the soul, gives ever 
stronger expression to the Spirit’s testimony. The 
great evidence of sonship is likeness to God. But son- 
ship is correlative to Fatherhood. It is through Christ 
as the Son that we learn to know the Father. It is 
through the growing experience of sonship that we 
gain that knowledge of Christ which brings us to the 
true knowledge of the Father. When we find the like- 
ness of Christ more and more formed within us, we 
look beyond it and beyond Christ to a Fatherhood in 
which this sonship has its deepest root, a Love that is 
absolute, that combines in it infinite holiness and in- 
finite mercy and compassion, and finds its deepest joy 
in self-sacrifice. 

Before leaving this branch of our subject let me 
say a word respecting the trinitarian character of the 
Christian’s experience. In the description I have given 
in this and the preceding lecture of that knowledge 
of God as Father, Christ, and Spirit which is involved 
in the new life, I have not meant to imply that it fur- 
nishes us with the doctrine of the Trinity in the formal 
shape given to it in our theological systems. The doc- 
trine is the result of Christian thought reflecting upon 
the facts of Christianity as given in the objective 
revelation and verified by the Christian consciousness, 
and giving expression to them in a philosophical form. 
All that I claim is that the materials are present in 
Christian experience, and that the Christian knows 
himself, with evidence that completely satisfies his 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 179 


heart and his intellect, to be in contact with the Holy 
Spirit, the Father, and the Christ. I think, also, the 
great proof of the reasonableness of this doctrine is 
the fact that it is verified, so far as its great outlines 
are concerned, in Christian experience. This experi- 
ence is trinitarian; the God who is known in it is 
known under the threefold personal form of Father, 
Christ, and [oly Spirit. 

In saying this I do not at all undervalue the philo- 
sophical proof of this doctrine, which endeavors to 
demonstrate the reality of the Trinity from the necessi- 
ties of the divine self-consciousness. But it seems to 
me that this philosophical demonstration must always 
remain barren unless it is brought into relation to the 
proof from the experience of the Christian.” 

In similar language I might speak of the knowledge 
of the Saviour’s person which comes to us through the 
Christian consciousness. It is not the theological doc- 
trine but only the real basis of that doctrine. 

III. But I pass to speak of the evidence derived from 
the communion of the Christian with God — Father, 
Son, and [oly Spirit. His relation to the sacred Three 
is a personal one of spirit to spirit in rational commun- 
ion and fellowship. He is not mixed with them in any 
magical way. He does not lose his identity in God and 
Christ. His union with them is not physical. It is a 
conscious, personal union—mutual, reciprocal—in which 
there is action and reaction, the divine meeting the 
human, and the human the divine, as two souls meet in 
the converse of friendship and love. Here lies the 
deepest meaning of the “ mystical union.” For there 
is a true Christian mysticism. There is a sphere where 
the Father reveals himself as he does not to the world. 


180 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


This is the great source of the Christian’s growing 
strength and joyousness and courage amid all the 
trials and difficulties and dangers and oppositions of 
life. When the world outside grows unendurable he 
can withdraw into himself and find converse and com- 
fort and counsel. He is God’s friend, his confidant; 
he shares the counsels of God. 

In this life of communion with God the believer is 
made increasingly a partaker of eternal life. Thus the 
Saviour himself defined it: ‘ This is life eternal, that 
they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom thou hast sent” (John xvii. 3). It is 
life, because God is the soul’s true good, because his 
favor is life, because the spirit attains its highest func- 
tion in this fellowship with God and Christ through 
the Spirit. It is eternal, because it is a foretaste of the 
endless blessedness with God and Christ in the heavenly 
world. 

In this communion with God into which the Chris- 
tian more and more fully enters there is nothing 
miraculous. It is not such acommunion as the proph- 
ets and apostles had in the days of supernatural rev- 
elation, when they were made the recipients of a 
truth beyond the power of the human soul in its 
ordinary exercises to attain. Though we know but 
little of the nature of this inspiration, we are certain 
that it transcended the ordinary and natural. The 
communion of which I am speaking is not such an 
objective contact and converse that we could speak of 
it as if it carried with it the spiritual equivalents of 
visible presence or audible voice. The Christian knows 
that he stands on a lower level of communion with God 
than that which he is to attain in the other world. As 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 181 


was remarked a moment ago, he sees not yet “ face 
to face,” but “in a mirror darkly” (1 Cor. xii. 12). 
He does not see God as the pure in heart are to do in 
the “ beatific vision” (Matt. v. 8). 

This communion conforms to the ordinary laws of 
the soul’s action. The fact that it is difficult to ana- 
lyze and describe does not make the Christian less cer- 
tain of its reality. He knows, and knowsit with con- 
stantly increasing certainty, that a higher, more than 
natural or human power, even the power of Father, 
Son, and Spirit, has laid hold of him and holds him 
fast, touching and stimulating and inspiring his whole 
nature,—will, intellect, and feeling. He knows that 
this power is personal and conscious, even as he 
knows himself personal and conscious. It is in the 
sphere of personality that the contact takes place, 
and its actions and reactions are all personal and con- 
scious. In our intercourse with our fellow-men the 
spiritual in us is stirred and quickened. In a higher 
degree this takes place in our intercourse with the 
Father and Christ through the Holy Spirit. The 
believer is never more himself than when he is thus 
conversant with God—walking with him, to use the 
expressive phrase of the Bible. His will meets a 
higher, holier, more loving Will than his own, and 
meets it only to submit itself in a joyous self-abnega- 
tion which is the truest freedom. THis intellect is 
illuminated by the radiance of a higher Intellect, shin- 
ing upon it in all the self-evidence of perfect truth. 
Ilis sensibility is touched in all its range and infinite 
variety, as the keyboard of some great organ is manip- 
ulated by the skilful musician, who calls forth from 
it exquisite melody. And this is, as I have said, in- 


182 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


creasingly the case, so that more and more this inner 
life of fellowship with God becomes the real and true 
part of the man’s life, which gives its meaning to his 
life in the world and among his fellow-men. 

This life of communion with God receives its best 
illustration from that form and function of it which is 
most characteristic of Christian experience, namely, 
prayer. The poet speaks of the 


‘Still communion that transcends 
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.” '® 


But viewed from the stand-point of a sober Christian 
life which claims no mystic element beyond what is 
taught on every page of the Bible, these offices, so far 
from being imperfect, are the highest expression of the 
believer’s communion with God. It is indeed true 
that prayer is not confined to Christianity but is the 
utterance of man’s religious nature everywhere, the 
evidence that he knows himself dependent upon God and 
always in his presence. The veriest heathen, despite 
the imperfection of his religion, with its inadequate 
and perverted conceptions of God, prays, holding up 
imploring hands to a Being higher than himself on 
whom his welfare and happiness are conditioned. But 
only in Christianity do we find prayer in its highest 
potency and truest meaning. Take the case of a Chris- 
tian who lives the hidden life with any degree of ful- 
ness and intimacy, and you find prayer in a form of 
which the heathen or the devotee of natural religion 
has but little idea. It aims, indeed, at particular 
blessings to be obtained from God. But it does far 
more than that. It brings the believer into the most 
intimate fellowship with the Iather, the Christ, and 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 183 


the Holy Spirit. It is connected most closely with the 
whole work of redemption, and bears everywhere the 
redemptive character. 

It is prayer to the Father as the God of grace, in 
the name of Jesus Christ and on the ground of his re- 
demptive work, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. 
It has its springs in God’s gracious forgiveness. It is 
the expression of the filial spirit. It is an element in 
the sanctifying process by which the believer is ma- 
tured to the perfect manhood in Christ Jesus. 

All prayer implies the answering activity of God. 
Even the heathen praying to his ian believes that he 
is heard, and that his prayer will be answered by the 
superhuman Power of which the idol is the symbol 
and the vehicle. He would think it folly to pray if he 
supposed, as some who claim the Christian name do, 
that prayer is a one-sided operation, a “mere dumb- 
bell exercise,” as Horace Bushnell called this perver- 
sion of it.” Ile has no doubt that he has come into a 
relation in which reciprocal influences are at work. 

But the prayer of the Christian means more than 
this. He knows upon increasing and ever-strengthen- 
ing evidence that he is enwrapped in the divine life 
and made a part of the divine activity. He finds 
himself a factor in God’s work of redemption, a work- 
ing power in God’s kingdom of grace. His commun- 
ion with God partakes of this character. ‘No longer,” 
said the Saviour to his disciples, “do I call you ser- 
vants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord 
doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things 
that I heard from my Father I have made known 
unto you” (John xv. 15). 

The believer is in such a relation of confidence and 


184. EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


intimacy with God, knowing himself to be a fellow- 
worker with him in the great cause. He knows the 
Tfoly Spirit to be at work in the depths of his own 
nature, inditing his petitions, helping his infirmities 
when he knows not what he should pray for as he 
ought (Rom. viii. 26, 27). His own freedom, never so 
truly free as when thus involved in the movement of 
the divine life, to which it gladly and with full con- 
sciousness submits itself, is borne along on the deep, 
strong tide of the Spirit’s return to God, and his 
prayer is a part of that great movement of the world 
to God through~the redemptive activity of the Spirit. 
He knows, also, that’ his prayer is made through the 
Christ. The living Saviour, seated upon the throne, 
is his Advocate (1 John ii. 1), who makes continual 
intercession for him (Rom. viii. 34), and through him 
lie finds access to the mercy-seat of the Most High 
(Eph. ii. 18). | 

And so his prayer comes to the Father of mercies, 
the God of all comfort, the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. i. 8); and in God’s conde- 
scending answer and loving gifts of grace the circle of 
communion is complete. 

This life of prayer is the Christian’s secret, which 
he finds it hard to utter, it is so different from all 
other experiences, so profound and sacred, yet so real. 
How utterly opposed to those mistaken views of prayer 
which are held by many who eall themselves Chris- 
tians, and perhaps are so in spite of their erroneous 
opinions! The “ reflex influence’! ” what a motive for 
prayer! how meaningless! how absurd! No human 
being, after he has found out the secret and convinced 
himself that there is nothing more in prayer, will ever 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 185 


think of pursuing it. So, too, how inadequate, not to 
say perverted, is the view which makes prayer a sort 
of magic incantation by which men can extort certain 
blessings from God, whether he thinks it wise to be- 
stow them or not. Physical blessings, healings of dis- 
ease, selfish gratification, physical or spiritual—as if 
these things were all that prayer-is good for, and as if 
it meant no more than these! I say this, not meaning 
to deny that we have a right to pray for personal bless- 
ings, both temporal and spiritual, or that God answers 
such prayers according to the asking, when he sees it 
to be wise so to do. My only contention is that to 
confine prayer to this, and to suppose it to be a means 
of laying constraint upon the divine will, is to miss 
what is most essential to it. 

The Christian has increasing evidence of the truth of 
Christianity through answers to prayer. Too strong 
emphasis cannot be laid upon this point. It is here 
that in the case of the ordinary believer some of the 
most convincing proof for the reality of Christianity is 
furnished. He asks and he receives, and through the 
connection between the asking and receiving obtains 
indubitable evidence. 

Let us look first at the spiritual blessings which 
come in answer to prayer. That these are not the 
result of “reflex influence” has been already as- 
serted, and it follows from their nature. The spirit- 
ual effects which follow prayer are not explicable 
through human agency. They are a part of that 
sanctification which we have seen to be divine. The 
Christian is compelled by the most painful experience 
to distinguish sharply between the results of his own 
self-trust and the results of prayer. Ie attempts the 


186 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


work of spiritual reformation in his own strength, and 
he fails utterly. Over and over again—for it is long 
before the Christian learns this lesson—he is compelled 
to bewail his folly in building his house upon the sand 
of his own good resolutions and efforts. The easily- 
besetting sin which he would overcome proves too 
strong, the evil habit too deeply rooted, for such treat- 
ment. But it is altogether different when he prays 
the effectual fervent prayer of faith. Then he lays 
hold upon divine power and this effects the result that 
his own strength tried in vain to accomplish. He can- 
not doubt the reality of the response that comes to his 
cry. The strength of Christ is made perfect in his 
weakness (2 Cor. xii. 9). Thus the work of sanctifica- 
tion goes on. Remaining sin is more and more over- 
come. The habit of prayer becomes more a part of 
the man’s life, and the spiritual results of it more un- 
deniable. 

But there are other answers to prayer that are not 
confined to the inner life, but extend to the world with- 
out. ‘These are numerous and striking, and possess 
strong evidential force. I do not refer merely to the 
prayers which aim at physical blessings, though they 
are not by any means to be excluded ; but to all pray- 
ers the answers to which involve manifest providential 
results in the external world. To this class belong 
the prayers for guidance in matters of Christian duty. 
The answer comes not alone through inward impres- 
sions. Indeed, as regards these impressions, the sober, 
cautious Christian is not inclined to accept them with- 
out deliberate and scrupulous investigation. There 
are providential indications, as we call them, coming to 
us from without, upon which we lay the chief stress in 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 187 


our decisions. What Christian has not, over and over 
again, been guided by such indications, and what Chris- 
tian doubts that they are real answers to prayer ? 

To the same category belong our prayers for matters 
involving the spiritual or material well-being of others. 
As the Christian life advances, the believer gathers an 
increasing catalogue of these answers, which serve to 
strengthen his faith and to give him confidence in the 
reality and power of the great spiritual instrament God 
has placed in his hands. A more extensive and pro- 
founder experience also teaches the Christian better to 
understand the divine methods in dealing with prayer, 
so that the cases of apparent failure on God’s part do 
not perplex him. For as he comes more and more into 
intimacy with God, he learns why it is morally impos- 
sible for God to grant many things that are asked of 
him, though at the same time he never leaves the ear- 
nest and sincere requests of his children unregarded. 

Closely connected with the evidence arising from 
God’s providential working in answer to prayer is that 
which is derived from thedivine providence in its re- 
lation to the events of the believer’s life in the world. 
The latter comes increasingly to realize that the heav- 
enly Father has taken hin up into the work of the 
kingdom in such a way as to make his personal provi- 
dence to him as an individual a part of the providence 
of grace which superintends the interests of the king- 
dom. For this reason all things work together for 
good to him that loves God. They cannot but do so, 
since the Christian’s good is involved in the swmmum 
bonum, the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of 
redemption through Christ. In the progress of Chris- 
tian experience this fact is realized more and more 


188 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


completely and understandingly. The child of God is 
able to see in all God’s dealings with him a divine 
education, fitting him for service in earth and heaven, 
and causing him to grow in the grace as he grows in 
the knowledge of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 
(2 Pet. ili. 18). He comes to see that there is a di- 
vine meaning in all that from a lower stand-point seems 
evil. He discovers that his worst sufferings are in 
reality ‘ growing pains,” the necessary condition of his 
preparation for the ends God has in view for him. 
Thus he is brought into a still closer intimacy with 
God and Christ. He sees the same process fulfilled in 
himself that was fulfilled in the sinless Saviour, when 
he was made perfect by suffering (Phil. iii. 10; Heb. ii. 
10). So he comes to see life in wholly new meanings. 
He reads God’s purpose from his providence as a mes- 
sage written in visible characters. There is thus fur- 
nished to him an evidence of the truth of the Christian 
faith possessing very great weight, and one that is con- 
tinually growing in force. 

IV. A similar evidence is derived from the believ- 
er’s advancing knowledge of God’s work in the world. 
The kingdom of God is to him the key to all history 
and all passing events. He knows the kingdom of 
God in his own experience, and he is thus able to re- 
cognize its workings in the world without. He knows 
that the Saviour is at the helm of the universe, mak- 
ing all things conspire for the advancement of his re- 
demptive work. The Christian is in a true sense a 
prophet. He sees things that other men cannot. see. 
He knows the outcome of human history. God’s pur- 
pose has been revealed to him, and he is certain that it 
is being successfully carried out. He looks upon the 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. 189 


hurrying current of time, as it has flowed on since the 
creation, and he knows whither it is tending and 
through what regions it is to pass before it empties 
into the eternal sea. He sees the evolution of the nat- 
ural world, the long ages during which the worlds were 
building and this earth was being fitted for its use, 
the upward progress from the beginnings of life, 
through vegetable and animal forms to man; he sees 
the long course of human history, with all the whirl- 
pools and eddyings of the current, as human freedom, 
used in the interests of sin, has retarded the forward 
movement and made it devious; he sees to-day all the 
confusion of the world, the mingling of things high 
and holy with things sinful, the baffling elements in 
society, business, politics, science, art, religion, the ap- 
parent chaos in which so many perceive no order: and 
in it all he beholds God’s redemptive purpose steadily 
accomplishing itself; while in the future, far-off but 
distinct, he descries the end, the victory of Christ over 
evil, the redemption of the world. 

V. It is no insignificant feature of the evidence of 
Christian experience that the believer’s knowledge of 
the Christian verities is confirmed by that of his fel- 
low-Christians. Attention has been called to the fact 
that in virtue of his relation to Christ he is a member 
of the body of Christ, that spiritual fellowship which 
finds outward expression in the Christian church. He 
therefore knows that he does not stand alone. The 
individual experience is supplemented by the general 
Christian experience. There is a common Christian 
consciousness as well as an individual consciousness. 
It is not a mere figure of speech when we speak of 
public opinion, of the national conscience, of the com- 


190 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


mon beliefs of science. Men are so bound together in 
the world that knowledge passes from one to the other. 
Our education comes only as we partake of a common 
stock. In politics and social relations we share our ex- 
perience with each other. The same is true, only with 
a meaning higher in proportion to the higher nature 
of the sphere, in religion. We are not shut up to the 
isolation of our personal experience of Christianity. 
Our first knowledge of the distinctive Christian truth 
comes from others. God’s method of converting the 
world is to use Christians as his instruments. The 
young have the Christian life imparted to them by a 
long and complicated process, in which God and the 
soul are not the only factors; parents, teachers, and 
companions taking their part, though it may be only a 
subordinate one. Thus there is a traditional faith 
which becomes merged in a true, mature, personal 
faith.” 

Now the fact that the individual experience is con- 
firmed by the common experience is of the highest im- 
portance. The Christian does not depend upon him- 
self and his inward life alone for his evidence. He is 
one of a great multitude, bound together by the closest 
ties, who have had the same experience and add their 
testimony to his. The experience through which the 
Christian passes to-day is the same as that through 
which Paul passed. It is the experience of Tertullian 
and Clement, of Anselm and Bernard, of Calvin and 
the Wesleys. It appears in innumerable books of re- 
ligious biography. It is to be found to-day all over 
the Christian world. It is substantially the same 
among all bodies of Christians, in spite of the great 
differences of creed and practice. It is the experience 


THE GROWTH OF THE EVIDENCE. LoL 


of the child brought up in a Christian land and of the 
converted heathen whose childhood has been spent 
among the pollutions and errors of a false religion, and 
whose first knowledge of the Gospel has come from 
the lips of a missionary. The Christian does not, 
therefore, stand alone in his faith. When it is called 
in question he appeals not merely to his own experi- 
ence but also to that of the great multitude in all ages 
who have passed through the same. And in this ap- 
peal is involved one of his most powerful lines of evi- 
dence.”” 

VI. Finally, the Christian’s inward assurance of the 
truth of Christianity increases as the process of sanc- 
tification advances, a fact which likewise furnishes its 
quota to the aggregate of evidence. We have seen how 
this assurance or certainty made its appearance at the 
beginning of the Christian life in connection with the 
changed heart. It was a certainty of regeneration, of 
the divine working in the soul, of the reality of the 
Holy Spirit, the Christ, and the Father, of the for- 
giveness of sins, of the kingdom of God. We call it 
the witness of the Spirit, following the teachings of 
the Bible (Rom. viii. 16; Gal. iv. 6; 1 John v. 10). 
This certainty increases and expands in the progress of 
Christian life. At first, though there can be no doubt 
as to its validity, it is relatively weak. The great out- 
streaming of feeling, in the new joy and peace of con- 
version, so often characteristic of the nascent Christian 
experience is not a true index of the strength of the 
persuasion upon which it rests. Not infrequently it is 
followed by a reaction which threatens to throw the 
believer back into the gloom of his pre-Christian state. 
But the stream which at first burst forth with a show 


192 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIEN COE. 


of size and strength so excessive in proportion to its 
real dimensions gathers power as it goes and makes 
for itself ever deeper channels. Christian certainty is 
cumulative and expansive. It finds in the contents of 
the new life ever-increasing ground for assurance. 
The Christian is continually learning more of the Fa- 
ther, of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. As he walks 
with God and becomes more intimate with him in 
personal communion, and as he is associated with him 
in the work of the kingdom, his conviction of the real- 
ity of God as the Christian God—Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit—becomes more and more invincible. 

I do not mean to ignore the fact that even the best 
Christian has his seasons of doubt, or that they are 
often long-continued and distressing. Neither do I 
wish to set up assurance as a test of the reality of 
Christian experience ; for doubtless there are many 
true Christians who all through their lives have a 
minimum of assurance respecting their own Christian 
state. Doubt is one of the results of remaining sin 
and of the sinful influences in the Christian’s environ- 
ment. It is not necessarily the fault of the Christian 
himself. I think all true Christians would admit, on 
the strength of their experience, that doubt has even 
its beneficent part to play in the educational process 
by which God ripens and sweetens the character of his 
people and fits them for service in this world and the 
other. In a world of sin, at any rate, there are not, 
and cannot always be, clear skies and the bright shin- 
ing of the sun. The days of darkness are many. 

But while I am ready, and indeed anxious, to give 
due place to the existence of doubt in the experience of 
the Christian, I deny that the fact in any way Vitiates 


THE GROWTH OF THE EHVIDENCE. 198 


the worth of the normal tendency of that experience 
to certainty. Many days of darkness and cloud in the 
physical world do not make us doubt the existence of 
the sun. We know that the shaded light which still 
makes it possible for us to see the world is the light of 
the sun, and when the clouds vanish and the great 
luminary shines in all his radiance, our certainty of 
his existence is all the stronger for the temporary ob- 
scuration. So the temporary seasons of doubt which 
befall even the best Christian do not invalidate his 
certainty, though for the time it is partially obscured. 
I am inclined to think that even in the case of those 
Christians who form the exception to the rule and 
have but little assurance, we are to take their utter- 
ances respecting themselves with considerable allow- 
ance, and that there exists under their timidity and 
doubt a certainty that is none the less real because in 
a measure concealed. Often Christians of this class, in 
the test of persecution or opposition, give the most 
radiant evidence of the strength and reality of their 
conviction. But however this may be, in the normal 
progress of the Christian experience there is an enlarg- 
ing and deepening certainty which periods of occa- 
sional doubt obscure for the time, only to reveal it by 
their disappearance increased and strengthened. 

It thus comes that in the progress of the Christian 
experience the certainty of the Christian realities be- 
comes the fundamental certainty of life.* This is 
the case with religious certainty in general. In the 
order of development the certainty of the world comes 
first, that of our fellow-men next, that of self third, 
and that of God last; and this order indicates the rela- 
tive strength of each at the outset. But this order of 

13 


194. EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


development is precisely the opposite of the order of 
reality. An enlarging knowledge of things leads men 
to reverse the series. So it comes that the philosophy 
of religion brings to light the fact that the fundamental 
certainty is God. Now in the Christian experience we 
have a still higher grade of certainty; or perhaps I 
should say deeper, for it is in reality the certainty of 
God understood in its truest meaning. The Christian 
certainty, with its assurance of the existence of God as 
the God of grace and redemption, Father, Christ, and 
Holy Spirit; its assurance of union with Christ, for- 
giveness, progressive sanctification, designation to ser- 
vice; its assurance of God’s redemptive working in 
the kingdom—this certainty, I say, is capable of be- 
coming the highest and deepest of all.” 


LECTURE VI. 
THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 


We have now before us the evidence of Christian 
experience. The new life in its beginning and its 
growth contains the proof of its own reality and divin- 
ity. The certainty of the Christian is based upon the 
firm foundation of an undeniable spiritual experience 
and of the divine facts involved in redemption. 

Here we might rest the case. This experience satis- 
fies the mind. The philosopher and the unlettered 
Christian, the mature man and the little child, the man 
brought up in a Christian country under Gospel influ- 
ences and the heathen who has heard the Word first 
from the missionary’s mouth, are alike convinced when 
they accept the Gospel terms and enter into the realm 
of the new life. To all true Christians their experi- 
ence is the ground of an invincible assurance. And 
here the case is commonly rested by the writers on the 
evidences who give a place to this form of proof. 

But I do not think that it would be right for us to 
stop here. Thus far we have considered the subject 
practically rather than scientifically. That the evi- 
dence is satisfactory to the ordinary Christian, who 
takes it just as it is, without especial reflection or in- 
vestigation, is a strong point in its favor. Such prac- 
tical evidence, verifying itself in the life, is commonly 
valid. But we must look further, for our design is 


196 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


not merely practical. There are other questions which 
we must ask. Is this evidence of Christian experience 
capable of scientific or philosophical verification? Will 
it stand the tests of evidential logic? When the edu- 
cated Christian subjects this experience to the search- 
ing scrutiny of an investigation conducted on scientific 
principles, does it still show itself to be truth ? | 

My answer is, Yes; and it will be my endeavor in the 
next three lectures to show that the evidence of Chris- 
tian experience is not only practically, but also scien- 
tifically or theoretically, valid. In the present lecture 
I shall try to do this positively; in the two following, 
by answering the objections, philosophical and theologi- 
eal, which are brought against the experimental proof. 

I. In calling the verification scientific I use the 
term in the broad sense, not confining it to what is 
commonly denominated science by way of eminence, 
namely, physical science. The latter furnishes some 
of the most striking and typical illustrations of the 
scientific method, and, from the accuracy and conscien- 
tiousness with which it has applied that method, de- 
serves to stand asa model for all the sciences. My 
reference, however, is to the methods of verification 
common to all the sciences. By a science 1 mean any 
department of verified and systemized knowledge. 
There are certain recognized methods and criteria by 
which we distinguish truth from error, by which we 
turn the simple unverified and unorganized knowl- 
edge of ordinary life into the verified and ordered truth 
of science. In their principle these methods are the 
same, but they vary in application according to the 
nature of the sphere concerned. 

This last point is one of great importance. There is 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 197 


always a temptation to treat two widely separated de- 
partments of knowledge as if they were alike, to the 
great detriment of the one thus made to conform to a 
false standard. We need to bear in mind that the 
spiritual sphere, with which our investigation has to 
do, is unique. Its facts are altogether different from 
those of the physical and material world. Its realm 
is not that of the things that may be weighed and 
measured, but of the things that eye hath not seen nor 
ear heard, the things unseen and eternal (1 Cor. ii. 9; 
2 Cor. iv. 18). But with this qualification we may ap- 
ply the same general methods here as in other depart- 
ments of science, and we may gain many useful hints 
from the sphere of physical science. 

There are two objects which every science sets before 
it: the one, the discovery and verification of facts ; the 
other, the systernization of those facts. These two ob- 
jects are not wholly separable in practice, though they 
are clearly distinguishable. The processes by which 
they are attained go on to a certain extent side by side, 
and act and react upon each other, the discovery and 
verification of facts opening the way for the systemi- 
zation, and the systemization leaditig the way to the 
discovery and verification of new facts. Our present 
inquiry has to do with the first of these objects. The 
evidence of Christian experience depends upon the 
discovery and verification of the facts of the new life. 
The systemizing of these facts belongs not to apolo- 
getics but to systematic theology. 

What, now, is the fundamental task of science in 
dealing with the discovery and verification of facts ? 
I answer that it is the transformation of probable 
knowledge into real knowledge by experiment. 


198 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


In order to set clearly before you the meaning of 
this proposition, it is needful for me to call your atten- 
tion to the different kinds of knowledge and their re- 
lation to each other. We may distinguish three. 

The first is purely formal knowledge. It includes 
our apprehension of the necessary ideas or first prin- 
ciples of thought. It also includes the forms of rea- 
soning based upon necessary principles in the formal 
sciences, such as logic and mathematics. We have 
to do here with ideas, laws, relations, and processes, 
but not with real existences. The intuitions are not 
things and do not stand for things; they are forms of 
thought, which doubtless correspond to the objective 
forms of things, but are to be distinguished from the 
things themselves. Logic and mathematics are, as I 
have just said, formal sciences. They do indeed have 
an indirect relation to real existences. They deal with 
notions, and these notions represent reality. But for 
the purposes of these sciences the question of the cor- 
respondence of the notion with the reality is not essen- 
tial. The notions are mere counters of thought. The 
relation to reality is only hypothetical. Taking it for 
granted, as a supposition, that these notions represent 
so and so, we ask what results will follow from their 
combination and manipulation according to the mathe- 
matical and logical processes. 

Now the certainty corresponding to this kind of 
knowledge is absolute. The knowledge is necessary 
knowledge. Nosane man who is sufficiently mature 
to recognize the principles or follow the processes 
can repudiate them. The primitive intuitions of rea- 
son must be accepted. The demonstrations of logie 
and mathematics, supposing them to be rightly con- 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 199 


ducted, are undeniable. The independent value of 
this kind of knowledge has often been overrated. 
“You do not cease,” says Schopenhauer, “to boast 
of the reliability and certainty of mathematics. But 
what good does it do me to know ever so certain- 
ly and reliably what I have no interest in ? 

In mathematics the mind busies itself with its own 
forms of knowledge, time, and space, like the cat that 
plays with her own tail.”* It is only when the formal 
sciences are used in the interests of reality that they 
become of real value. If not so used they may be 
good for securing mental discipline, but otherwise they 
are worthless. 

The second kind of knowledge is that of real exist- 
ences. By real existences I mean things that make 
themselves manifest in our consciousness, not through 
notions disconnected from objects, but through effects 
present in consciousness which reveal causes immedi- 
ately affecting our consciousness. In other words, the 
basis of the knowledge of real existence is always an 
object known through sense-perception or the inner 
sense. Of this nature are the great universal facts 
which form the framework, or rather the foundation, 
of all our knowledge—self, the world, our fellow-man, 
God. Kant, as we noticed in a previous lecture, tried 
to show that these are merely formal and subjective 
ideas, but without success. To the same category be- 
long the facts that make up our daily experience, facts 
which are not universal but contingent. The chief 
note of this kind of knowledge is contact, including 
action and reaction, that is, reciprocity between our- 
selves and the objects.” The certainty connected with 
this kind of knowledge is different from that which 


200 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


accompanies the first kind. In so far as the knowledge 
is not universal, it cannot be said to be necessary. An 
experience which is confined to a part of mankind may 
be doubted or denied by the rest without detriment to 
their reputation for sanity. 

Nevertheless, this kind of knowledge is to him 
who has it quite-as real and cogent as the first kind. 
I say this, meaning to qualify the statement presently 
in some respects, but with an undoubting conviction 
of its general truth. The maxim, “ Seeing is_believ- 
ing,” is in point here. If an object is known by di- 
rect contact through the senses or otherwise, our 
knowledge of it is absolutely certain, and we pos- 
sess the knowledge with as much conviction, though 
based on different grounds, as that of a first truth 
of reason or a mathematical demonstration.’ It is 
also to be noted that the force of this kind of knowl- 
edge is not invalidated by the fact that we do not have 
the object at all times before us. When it has been 
once present, and known with certainty to be thus pres- 
ent, it may be recalled by the representative faculty 
with a certainty of its real existence no less genuine.* 
Moreover, where it is possible to renew the contact at 
will and repeatedly, there is a true sense in which there 
is an increase of this certainty—not, of course, a great- 
er certainty of the fact but a greater certainty of what 
is involved in the fact. 

The third kind of knowledge is that of probability. 
This has to do with existences which for various rea- 
sons we believe to be real, but which we do not know 
as real through their actual presence in consciousness, 
either now or at some past time. The reasons may be 
ever so good, but the contact fails. To this class be- 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 201 


long those matters of knowledge that rest upon hy- 
pothesis, analogy, or mere inference, carrying with 
them a greater or less degree of likelihood but lacking 
the verification of experience. A very large part not 
only of our practical daily knowledge, but also of our 
scientific knowledge, is of this character. To the same 
class, also, belongs the knowledge that rests upon the 
testimony of others. Here the basis is an alleged 
knowledge through actual contact in the consciousness 
of others ; but the facts remain outside of our own 
consciousness. Thus we know the facts of history or 
of the world to-day, so far as they lie beyond the 
sphere of our direct cognition. In this way I know 
that Julius Cesar lived, that Paul preached to the 
Gentiles, and that there is a country called Brazil in 
South America. If our knowledge of the veracity and 
trustworthiness of the persons to whom we owe the 
testimony is direct and satisfying, we may receive the 
facts to which they bear witness as true and act ac- 
cordingly, but still this is something very different 
from our own first-hand knowledge. Here belong also 
those concepts or notions which have come to us 
through education or intercourse with the world, which 
we owe to books, and the like; all identical in this, 
that they do not rest upon a basis of actual experi- 
ence,” 

Now the distinctive mark of this kind of knowl- 
edge is that it is not accompanied by certainty in 
the trne sense of the term. At most it carries with 
ita high degree of probability. It is true that this 
high probability is itself sometimes called certainty, 
but incorrectly. It is ‘moral certainty,” not true cer- 
tainty. Moral certainty is so called either because it 


202 HVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


rests upon the possessor’s confidence in the trustworthi- 
ness of others whose testimony he accepts, or else be- 
cause it is what for the practical purposes of life, its 
ordinary exigencies, we may take as certainty. But at 
the best it gives us only probability, greater or less. 
Speaking of the evidence connected with this kind of 
knowledge, Bishop Butler says, in the Introduction to 
his Analogy: ‘ Probable evidence is essentially dis- 
tinguished from demonstrative” (he says nothing of 
real knowledge and its evidence) “by this, that it ad- 
mits of degrees ; and of all variety of them, from the 
highest moral certainty to the very lowest presump- 
tion. . . . That which chiefly constitutes proba- 
bilety is expressed in the word dikely, that is, like 
some truth or true event; like it, in itself, in its evi- 
dence, in some (more or fewer) of its cireumstances. 
Probable evidence, in its very nature, affords 
but an imperfect kind of information.’ . . . To 
us probability is the very guide of life.”* These last 
words have passed into a proverb. They are certainly 
true in so far as they emphasize the fact that a very 
large portion of the knowledge of ordinary men is of 
this kind, and that they have to make the best terms 
with it they can. That probability is a guide of life, 
and a most important one, we will all admit; but it 
does not follow that it is the only guide, or the most 
important one. Nor does it follow from the fact that 
in many things the ordinary man must rest satisfied 
with probability, that the scientific man can make no 
real advance toward true certainty.’ 
But we cannot stop here. A moment ago, in de- 
scribing the knowledge of real existence, I gave notice 
that I should have to qualify my statements to some 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 208 


extent. The time has now come to do so. We distin- 
guish in the second kind of knowledge, namely, that 
of real existence, two elements. The first is the im- 
mediate apprehension the mind has of the object with 
which it has come into contact. The second is the 
fuller knowledge the mind has of the nature of the 
object. It is one thing to know that the object exists, 
and quite another to know what it is. The former 
kind of knowledge is simple and complete at the first ; 
the certainty which attaches to it is incapable of in- 
crease or diminution.” The latter kind is exceedingly 
complex ; it is capable of increase; and its certainty 
also is a matter of degree. 

The nature and relation of these two elements in 
real knowledge appear when we consider that thought 
is possible only by the help of notions or concepts.’ 
The two forms of presentative intuition, sense-percep- 
tion and the inner sense or self-consciousness, assure 
us of that contact which is the starting-point for 
thought ; but thought itself, and so knowledge in the 
full sense of the term, requires the help of the notion, 
that is, a product of the mind resulting from general- 
ization, and combining many and varied elements. 

The child and the man see the same star. The 
sensation of light in the consciousness of the two 
is the same. The certainty of the one respecting 
the reality of the sensation is neither greater nor 
Jess than that of the other. But the difference in their 
knowledge of its nature is enormous. The notion or 
concept predicated of the sensation in the mind of the 
child is vastly different from the notion in the mind of 
the man. One is almost tempted to say that the two 
do not see the same star. What the child sees is a 


204 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


point of light in the solid sky, and the notion it has is 
imperfect, vague, distorted. What the man sees is a 
world or sun moving through the infinitude of space. 
His notion contains in it all the knowledge respecting 
the heavenly bodies which he has gathered in the 
course of his life. And even greater than the differ- 
ence between the knowledge of the child and that of 
the man is the difference between the knowledge of 
the common man and that of the astronomer, who 
with telescope and spectroscope has made himself con- 
versant with all the details. The latter has in his no- 
tion all the knowledge which the science of astronomy 
and his personal observation have furnished. 

In this larger knowledge of actual existences the 
knowledge of probability has a part. The notion isa 
complex of knowledge consisting of many elements, 
often exceedingly heterogeneous. Some of its ele- 
ments are connected with real existence that has been 
directly known in consciousness, others are derived 
from other sources and carry with them only the 
knowledge of probability. Our probable knowledge is 
always in advance of our real knowledge. We know 
what things are only in part through actual experience. 
We are influenced by our prejudices, by our associa- 
tions, by our education; we reason by analogy; we 
frame our hypotheses ; we avail ourselves of the testi- 
mony of others. Our notions are the result of all 
these agencies, and often it is exceedingly difficult for 
us to analyze them and distinguish the real from the 
merely probable in them. But the fact of which I am 
speaking is the condition of all progress in knowledge 
in the individual and in mankind at large. We accept 
at first as probable what we afterward verify through 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 205 


our experience as actual. We rectify and enlarge the 
concepts through which we know the various objects 
presenting themselves to us in intuition. Thus the 
ehild advances in knowledge, gradually appropriating 
the stores of knowledge that others have gathered. 
Thus the world progresses, throwing out its skirmish 
line of probability, and following it up with the main 
army of its experience. 

But it is to be noted that while even the knowledge 
of actual existence, when taken in the wider sense, has 
this element of probable knowledge, and consequently 
of merely relative certainty, still it does not lose its 
fundamental character. There is always an essential 
difference between the knowledge of experience, how- 
ever large the element of probable knowledge connect- 
ed with it through the notion associated with it, and 
the probable knowledge pure and simple. The one is 
at the bottom first-hand knowledge, the other is not. 
The traveler in a foreign land may bring home with 
him far more knowledge gained from guide-books than 
gotten through his own eyes. But the fact remains, 
differencing his knowledge from that of the best-read 
man; he has seen for himself. 

Now the fundamental task of science in dealing 
with the discovery and verification of facts is, as has 
been said, the transformation of probable knowledge 
into real knowledge by experiment. The knowledge 
of ordinary life is to a considerable extent probable, 
and, where it is real knowledge, the concepts or notions 
through which it is thought contain a large element of 
probable knowledge. We rest satisfied with approxi- 
mate certainty, and do not trouble ourselves too much 
about absolute certainty. Itis in this sense that But- 


206 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Jer’s maxim is true, as I said a few moments ago, that 
“probability is the very guide of life.” But it is just 
here that scientific knowledge differs from ordinary 
knowledge. Science cannot rest contented with prob- 
ability where certainty is attainable. It demands real 
facts. Its method is to put the facts to the test of ex- 
periment, and thus to confirm or overthrow the prob- 
able knowledge. Or where there are facts known by 
contact, it takes the notions associated with those facts 
and subjects them in their elements to the same tests, 
thus eliminating the false and giving certainty to the 
true. This is true of physical science, which demands 
a basis of facts known through experiment. It is 
equally true of the other sciences. Thus in history, 
the science that rests to so large an extent upon testi- 
mony, the great change which the introduction of the 
modern scientific method has brought about has been 
the recourse to the “sources,” that is, to documents 
or monuments, which carry us back of the testimonies 
we find in the chronicles or unscientific histories of 
later times, and give us, to some extent at least, a 
contact with the original events. 

It is this that gives science its basis of fact, without 
which it would be nothing. The great service per- 
formed by Lord Bacon lay just here. In the Middle 
Ages science had become a matter of opinion rather 
than of facts. The notions of the understanding, often 
based upon the scantiest foundation of reality, were 
made the starting-point of science. Bacon, speaking 
in the name of the best thought of his age, cried halt 
to this tendency. Ie insisted that the scientific man 
must cast out from the sanctuary of his mind the idols 
or unfounded notions which infest it, and bring all 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 207 


things to the test of experiment. The idols of the 
tribe, the cave, the market-place, and the theatre—that 
is, the unfounded and unreal notions having their 
foundation in human nature itself, or in the peculiarity 
of the individual man, or resulting from the ordinary 
association of men, or from the baseless speculations 
of the philosophers—must give place to actual knowl- 
edge based upon the contact of experience.” The first 
words of the Vovwm Organum strike the keynote to 
the new scientific method: “‘ Man, being the servant 
and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so 
much, and so much only, as he has observed in fact 
or in thought of the course of nature; beyond this 
he neither knows anything nor can do anything.” ™ 
Would that physical science, with its inflated currency 
of theory, would attend to these words! Again he says: 
‘‘ We must lead men to the particulars themselves, and 
their series and order; while men on their side must 
force themselves for awhile to lay their notions by and 
begin to familiarize themselves with facts.” Again: 
“The question, whether or no anything can be known,” 
is “to be settled not by arguing, but by trying.” * 
Similar in its aim is the method of later science, to 
which the name has been given of the ‘“ Newtonian 
induction.” This deals not with the first discovery 
and verification of facts, but with the enlargement of 
our knowledge throngh the discovery of new facts. 
It begins with an hypothesis based upon facts already 
known, a shrewd guess as to the truth on the ground 
of the indications of known facts; or, we might say, a 
guess which expresses the probability inherent in the 
facts. This hypothesis is then subjected to deduction ; 
that is, the results which should ensue from its appli- 


208 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


cation to particular cases are determined. Finally, the 
results thus hypothetically stated are subjected to the 
test of experiment, and thus confirmed or rejected.” 
The great value of a “ working hypothesis ” in science 
lies in the number of new facts which are experimen- 
tally brought to light by its help. What gives the hy- 
pothesis of evolution its high worth in natural science 
to-day is the vast number of new facts which it has 
enabled investigators to discover and to verify experi- 
mentally. Should it cease thus to open the way tothe 
enlargement of real knowledge it would be discarded 
to-norrow by the men of science. Newtonian indue- 
tion is thus concerned with the transformation of prob- 
able knowledge, as expressed in the hypothesis and 
the cases deduced from it, into real knowledge. 

IJ. We come now to the application of these prin- 
ciples of all science to the evidence of Christian expe- 
rience. The entrance into the sphere of Christian ex- 
perience follows the scientific method in that it is a 
transformation of probable knowledge into real knowl- 
edge by experiment. It is emphatically real knowledge 
which it claims to have. The very term experience 
indicates this; it implies the existence of objects with 
which we come into actual contact. We do not ex- 
perience the first principles of thought or the processes 
of logic and mathematics. Still less do we experience 
the knowledge of probability. In every case experi- 
ence implies the presence of real existence acting di- 
rectly upon and in our consciousness.”® Accordingly, 
the certainty belonging to Christian experience is not 
a mere moral certainty but a true certainty. 

It is true that the knowledge of Christian experience 
has, like much of our real knowledge, an element of 


THH VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 209 


probability. Like our other knowledge it is in part 
second-hand ; otherwise it would not be the partial and 
growing knowledge the Bible everywhere declares 
it to be. The notions through which it is thought 
have their element of derived knowledge. But this 
fact does not alter the fundamental character of Chris- 
tian experience. It is based in real knowledge. It 
stands upon an altogether different footing from that 
probable knowledge which involves no contact with 
the redemptive realities. Its fundamental certainty is 
complete and unquestionable. Its anchor enters into ~ 
that within the veil (Heb. vi. 19). The Christian must 
indeed say, “ We know in part and we prophesy in 
part” (1 Cor. xiii. 9). But he can also say, “We 
have heard for ourselves and know that this is 
indeed the Saviour of the world” (John iv. 42). 
His increasing certainty of the nature of the Chris- 
tian realities is based upon his absolute certainty 
of their existence. He has tasted and seen that the 
Lord is good (Ps. xxxiv. 8). Accordingly, the evidence 
of Christian experience, even when taken in its weakest 
form, has a value that the strongest probable evidence 
cannot have. A single glimpse of the divine grace is 
a stronger proof than libraries of probable arguments.”* 

1. We recur to the statement made a moment ago, 
that the entrance into the sphere of the Christian ex- 
perience is confirmed as valid by the fact that it fol- 
lows the scientific method. I do not ignore the fact 
that this kind of knowledge is altogether different 
from that which belongs to the other departments with 
which science has to do. Butin this respect the act of 
faith by which the Christian life is entered is scien- 
tific: it is the transformation of probable knowledge 

‘4 


210 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


into real knowledge by means of experiment. The 
knowledge of divine things which is brought to the 
unconverted man by revelation and the witness of be- 
lieving Christians is second-hand or merely probable. 
Such a man has indeed an experimental knowledge of 
God, but the distinctively Christian knowledge comes 
to him only as a.matter of probability. 

This probable knowledge of Christianity is not to be 
despised. It hasa very high value. The concepts with 
which revelation and the experience of others furnish 
us are as valid as a large part of our knowledge. One 
educated in a Christian land has been under the influ- 
ence of these concepts, and the knowledge they con- 
vey, from his infancy, and they have grown with his 
growth, where no untoward influence has intervened, 
and strengthened with his strength. The probability is 
high, so high that, if Butler’s maxim is correct, there is 
the best reason for acting according to it. ‘There area 
thousand things in our daily life that guide and con- 
trol our actions, yet for which we have not evidence 
half so strong. All the evidences of Christianity, ex- 
cept the one we are examining in these lectures, are 
active in the community and make their influence felt 
even upon those who have not the culture or intellect 
to investigate them. Even the evidence of Christian 
experience is known through the testimony of Chris- 
tians, a testimony which every candid mind must re- 
gard as having a high worth. 

Nevertheless, the fact remains that this pre-Christian 
knowledge of Christianity is only probable knowledge. 
From the nature of the case it cannot be otherwise. 
But there is a way open, though only one way, by 
which it can be turned from probable into real knowl- 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 211 


edge. That is the scientific way of experiment. It is 
not like that large portion of our probable knowledge 
which we cannot turn into the knowledge of experi- 
ence from lack of ability or opportunity. God through 
Christ and the Holy Spirit has made it possible for 
everyone who will to put the Gospel to the test and 
learn for himself whether it is true or false. It is the 
part of reason to try. The sinner who puts the Sav- 
iour to the test acts scientifically. He follows the 
highest dictate of reason. There is, indeed,a certain 
risk in it of disappointment and defeat. But it is the 
risk taken by every scientific experimenter, and wisely 
taken.” 

2. But, as a matter of fact, no one who takes this 
risk is ever disappointed. Experiment gives contact. 
The probable knowledge is changed into real knowl- 
edge. The testimony is confirmed by the reality. The 
hypothesis is verified by the trial. Let us, then, look 
more closely at the experience of the Christian and the 
evidence it affords. We shall consider its various ele- 
ments separately. But let us remember that they do 
not exist separately in reality. They form together 
one organism of knowledge. 

(1.) The fundamental element is the great change in 
the man himself, by which he passes from death unto 
life. The new J, the presence of life eternal, the 
transformed will, the enlightened intellect, the renewed 
sensibility, the quieted conscience—these are the sali- 
ent points in this wonderful experience. Now this is 
a change within the sphere of consciousness. This is 
the sphere in which, even according to the agnostic and 
positivist, we can have absolute certainty. So much 
modern science without hesitation concedes. Says Je- 


212 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


vons, speaking of scientific certainty : “ Whatever feel- 
ing is actually present to the mind is certainly known 
to that mind. IfI see blue sky, I may be quite sure 
that I do experience the sensation of blueness. What- 
ever I do feel, I do feel beyond all doubt. We are in- 
deed very likely to confuse what we really feel with 
what we are inclined to associate with it, or infer in- 
ductively from it; but the whole of our consciousness, 
as far as it is the result of pure intuition and free from 
inference, is certain knowledge beyond all doubt.” ” 

This change is known directly, and the certainty at- 
taching to it is a certainty that has the sanction of all 
science. The Christian can no more doubt it than he 
can doubt his own existence. His certainty respecting 
it is complete. His experience is knowledge pure and 
simple.” I will not attempt to describe again what has 
been so fully treated in a former lecture,” but I wish to 
emphasize the fact that this basal element in Christian 
experience does not admit of doubt, but carries with it 
the highest validity. And in order that it should be 
valued at its true worth, it is not needful that the 
Christian should know the day and moment of his 
conversion. The fact of the change is all-sufficient. 
Even the child brought up from the first within the 
Christian fold knows that there is a life within which 
is altogether different from the sinful life of nature. 
There is a holy growth which could not have sprung 
from the evil soil of the natural heart.” 

It is a notable fact that this change, so great and 
marked is it even in its outward manifestation, makes 
a powerful impression upon those who have not experi- 
enced it, and even the unbelieving thought of our day 
is inclined to treat it as areality. Whatever may be 


THH VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 213 


its cause, it does change the whole current of men’s 
lives, making them inwardly and outwardly new 
men. It satisties the deepest and most crying needs 
of their nature. 

In this fundamental experience, then, there is no 
element of probable knowledge. We have certainty, 
not of the moral sort, but real and complete. It is 
indeed trne that we are brought to this experience by 
the objective revelation and by the Bible which, re- 
cords it. The way of salvation is there laid down 
and the nature of the new life described. There is a 
true sense in which we recognize the great change by 
the aid of the Bible. But there is a sense in which it 
is equally true that this experience is independent of 
the Bible. It passes over from probability into actu- 
ality and thus confirms the truth of the Bible. But 
no man could pass through it, whether he had the 
Bible or not, without knowing it for the change it is. 
If it be true that any of the heathen are regenerated in 
this life, they mnst have some knowledge of the fact, 
though they will of course describe it in different 
terms and explain it in different ways from the Chris- 
tian. 

(2.) The Christian’s knowledge of the Cause of the 
great change he has experienced is different from his 
knowledge of the change itself, but, I am inclined to 
think, not less certain. The question turns upon our 
view of the relation of the contents of consciousness to 
their causes. If we hold the Kantian doctrine, or 
that of the agnostics and positivists, that knowledge is 
subjective and that we can have no knowledge of 
causes, of course there can be no certainty ; indeed, 
there cannot be even probability; we are shut up to 


214 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCK. 


blank ignorance with respect to everything except the 
subject and its modifications. But if we take the 
truer view, at once more philosophical and more sci- 
entific, that the cause is known through the effect, the 
object that modifies consciousness through the modifi- 
cation of consciousness, then the case is different. 
Subject and object alike are known in every act of cog- 
nition. Where there is real contact and the object is 
present, this presence of the object is known. We 
can have no knowledge of actual existence otherwise. 
The change which takes place is not an actual existence 
itself, that is, it is not an object, but the manifestation 
of one. It calls for an explanation. It is the sign of 
the contact of the man with an object external to him- 
self, and at the same time it is the medium of the dis- 
closure of that object. The effect in consciousness is 
not a wall that separates subject from object, it is 
rather a bond that unites the two.” 

Thus it is in sense-perception. I say that I see an 
object—a chair, for example. What do I mean? 
That there is present in my consciousness a group of 
sensations, of form, color, and the like, and that there 
is also present in my consciousness the knowledge of 
an object outside of myself. By the process of percep- 
tion my mind reacts upon that object and apprehends 
it. J am certain that the cause of the sensations to 
which I referred is not myself but some being external 
to myself. I know, also, by the nature of the effects 
that it is a material and not a spiritual being. My 
full knowledge of the object is attained when I apply 
to it the concept chair, in an implied or expressed 
judgment, “This is a chair,’ which notion ineludes 
not only what is actually known in the perception, but 


THK VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 215 


all my knowledge of whatever kind, and derived from 
whatever source, respecting the class to which this ob- 
ject belongs. 

Now the Christian, in full conformity with the 
laws of the human mind, discovers in the great change 
of regeneration its true Cause, namely, God. That 
Cause is revealed in and through the new life that is 
pulsating in his soul. The renewed will, the enlight- 
ened intellect, the quickened and purified sensibility, 
the quieted conscience, are effects that disclose a di- 
vine power. These modifications of consciousness are 
the instrument of what may be called (borrowing our 
terms from the sense-side of our mental nature) a 
spiritual perception. The possibility and actuality of 
such spiritual knowledge cannot be fairly denied. 
“As through the impressions of sense,” declares Pro- 
fessor Harris, ‘we perceive our physical environment, 
so through rational and spiritual principles, sentiments, 
and susceptibilities we perceive our spiritual environ- 
ment, the universal and all-illuminating Reason, the 
Absolute Spirit, and the system of personal and spir- 
itual beings related to him. Man is conscious of God 
in a manner analogous to that in which he is conscious 
of the outward world.”** The same able writer says, 
“As man, being as to his body included in nature, is 
surrounded by a physical environment which is con- 
stantly acting on him and presenting itself in his con- 
sciousness, 80 man, as spirit, is surrounded by a spiritual 
environment which is constantly acting on him and 
presenting itself in his consciousness, That environ- 
ment is God.” * 

This has been clearly shown already in our lecture 
on the theistic presupposition. We do not come to 


216 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


the Christian experience ignorant of God. He has 
been known before in consciousness, in the com- 
mon religious experience. The notion of God is 
present in the mind as something well defined and 
certain, resting on constant contact with God in all the 
spheres of our being. We are not, therefore, at a loss 
to discover the true cause of regeneration. The Chris- 
tian knows that the effect is not due to himself as a 
cause. No fact is more certain than that he has had no 
decisive hand in producing the result. So far as he 
has acted at all, he knows himself to have been only an 
instrument, dependent upon a higher power. He 
knows that he has been moulded by an agency outside 
of himself. He cannot ascribe the transformation to 
_ the unintelligent forces of nature. The effect is not 
such as is produced by material or physical causes. 
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
which is born of the Spirit is spirit ” (John iii. 6) ; 
here are two altogether different and incongruous 
spheres. Ilis fellow-men, weak and sinful like himself, 
cannot be the cause. One cause, and one only, he 
knows sufficient for the effect, and that is God. It is 
God that is revealed in the new life. The Christian 
with his natural knowledge of God, in whom he has 
always lived and moved and had his being, knows the 
divine handiwork when he sees it, and can have 
no doubt that it is from God. It reveals the divine 
Author as truly as nature and the human soul reveal 
God in his natural aspects as the God of creation and 
providence. 

I do not undertake to explain the nature of the 
divine activity in regeneration. That is confessedly 
beyond us. It is as much a mystery as creation. 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 217 


Accordingly, I do not venture any theory as to the 
nature of our knowledge of God through regeneration 
and its effects. All that I assert is that somehow—in 
a manner analogous to that of sense-perception, though 
not in all respects the same—the soul is able to 
recognize in this wonderful experience the presence 
and active power of God. 

Whether this apprehension of God as the Author of 
the new life is mediate or immediate, isa matter of 
minor importance. In either case there is the certainty 
that God is there and actively at work. Evangelical 
theologians unanimously assert that regeneration and 
the new life are supernatural in the sense that they 
are due to the direct efficiency of God. Lutheran 
theology emphasizes the necessity of the “means of 
grace,” the Word and the sacraments, making them 
the exclusive channels of the divine activity. Reformed 
theology represents the means of grace as the ordinary 
instruments of God in the initiation and continuance 
of the new life, but gives them a wider scope, includ- 
ing prayer and other agencies among the means, and 
also—which is of most importance—asserting that God 
can, when he sees fit, dispense with means in the ad- 
ministration of his grace. But all evangelical theo- 
logians agree that God, whether through means or 
without means, gains such access to the soul that he 
acts directly upon it, and, when the new life is estab- 
lished, is immanent in it.” 

Now, if it is possible for the subject of regeneration 
and the new life to have a knowledge of the Author of 
the change through the change itself, this would seem 
to require us to take the position that sense is not the 
only source of knowledge respecting real existences, 


218 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


but that on the other side, so to speak, of the soul, there 
are possibilities of what may be called spiritual 
apprehension. But if any prefer to hold to the view 
that sense-perception is the only channel of knowledge 
respecting real existences (for we are speaking of real 
existences or objects, and not of the principles or laws 
known through rational intuition), I would not quarrel 
with them. Our evidence is not dependent upon the 
particular solution of the psychological problem here 
suggested. The theory of knowledge is one of the 
most difficult subjects in philosophy. Even if in some 
way sense should be the medium of our knowledge of 
God’s presence and activity in regeneration and the new 
life, the reality of the immediateness of God’s action 
would not be impaired.” An activity may be dmme- 
diate and yet not wamediated.” Modern investigation 
into the nature of causation, spiritual and material, is 
exploding the old notion that intervening media 
separate the cause from the effect, and showing that, on 
the contrary, they serve to unite the two more closely. 
In our knowledge of finite spirits sense-media always 
intervene.” But when my child stands before me 
and talks with me, the immediacy of our communion 
is not impaired or impugned by the fact, taught 
me by physiological psychology, that spirit touches 
spirit only through a dozen or a hundred intervening 
media. 

I do not, then, place the certainty of the Christian 
with respect to the divine authorship of the new life 
upon any lower level than that which he has respecting 
the reality of the new life itself. The certainty of the 
cause is involved in the certainty of the effect. There 
is real contact with a known object. The presence of 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 219 


God—let us say it with due humility, yet with confi- 
dence—is not probable but certain. 

There is here, also, that relative independence of the 
objective revelation to which reference was made when 
speaking of regeneration. The outward revelation, or 
the Bible in which it is recorded, opens to us the way 
through which we may come under the influence of the 
divine Power that works in regeneration ; but when 
the Christian has actually felt that Power, he knows it 
not only because the Bible has told lim so, but also be- 
cause he has the reality in his own experience. In- 
deed, the movement is now quite in the opposite di- 
rection, not from the Bible but toward it. It is the 
divinity, manifest and indubitable, of the new life 
which authenticates the Bible and the objective revela- 
tion which it records. 

(3.) But when we come to consider the further ele- 
ments in the Christian’s experience, we encounter a 
much more difficult and complicated problem. I refer 
to what we have called the trinitarian character of the 
experience, namely, as a knowledge of the Father, the 
Christ, and the Holy Spirit ; as wellas to its christological 
and soteriological character, so far as it relates to the 
person and offices of the Saviour. Let me, however, 
say in advance of our discussion that while the evi- 
dence here is different in some important respects, and 
the certainty is not that simple and absolute certainty 
which belongs to the simple apprehension of the object 
that is in contact with the soul, but that growing cer- 
tainty that is connected with the progressive verifica- 
tion of the contents of a concept or notion belonging 
to the object known, still I do not mean to imply that 
the Christian has any reason for calling in question 


220 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


either the evidence or the certainty. From the first he 
may have an assurance of the reality of the Christian 
facts greater than that which he has with reference to 
the common facts of his life in the material world. 
From the first the basis of it all is first-hand; it is 
founded upon actual contact, and is not the knowledge 
of mere probability resting on hypothesis or testi- 
mony. The new life, the presence of God in it, and 
the special Christian knowledge form an inseparable or- 
ganism of knowledge, of which all the elements are inte- 
gral and essential parts, and which receives its distinctive 
character from the fundamental facts, known with abso- 
lute certainty, of the new life and its divine Cause. 
The knowledge of the Spirit, the Christ, and the 
Father comes first to the Christian, like all his Christian 
knowledge, from the objective revelation. The Bible, 
and the experience of other Christians verifying it, 
supply the notions or concepts by which the new life is 
known in its true nature. These notions, like many 
of those which we are constantly using in our daily 
life, are at first based upon probable knowledge, and 
then gradually turned into real knowledge by experi- 
ence. But while the certainty of the new life and its 
divine Cause separates itself immediately from the 
revelation and becomes in the fullest sense the personal 
possession of the Christian, the certainty respecting 
the inmost nature of the divine Cause, as Father, 
Christ, and Spirit, though present from the first, grows 
and deepens, reaching its full maturity only in a 
higher stage of existence. In the mirror of the new 
life the Christian sees enough at first to convince him 
that the Bible tells the truth. Tis experience reveals 
the three personal divine Agents. He verifies by his 


THH VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 221 


experience the Christian concepts of Father, Christ, 
and Spirit in their broad outlines. 

But in the progress of the Christian life there is a 
constantly increasing appropriation of the teachings of 
revelation respecting these facts, an advancing verifica- 
tion of the Christian concepts. ‘There is a wide 
difference,” says Dr. John Owen, though apparently 
without a full understanding of the importance of the 
principle he is laying down, “ between the mind’s re- 
ceiving doctrines noteonadly, and its receiving the things 
taught in them readly.”” In the course of the Chris- 
tian life there is a continuous transformation of doc- 
trine into reality, of notional knowledge into real 
knowledge. In this sense there is, during the present 
state of existence, always an element of probable and 
second-hand knowledge in the Christian’s appreliension 
of the Spirit, the Christ, and the Father. As the be- 
liever grows in grace he grows in the knowledge of 
his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Pet. i. 18), and 
in the same way he grows in the knowledge of the 
Holy Ghost and of God the Father. But this cannot 
be called second-hand knowledge, because there is a 
real contact, from the first known and understood, be- 
tween the soul and the sacred Three. Moreover, there 
is a difference with respect to his knowledge of the 
Three. He does not know them in the same way, or 
with an increase that is altogether proportionate in the 
different cases. Hisrelation of contact with the Three 
is different.” 

a. The knowledge of the Spirit is, as our exami- 
nation of the Christian experience in the two previous 
lectures showed us, fundamental. It is also attended 
with the fewest difficulties. I do not mean by this 


222 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


that the Christian in his reflections upon his inner ex- 
perience, as they are expressed in the language of the 
practical religious life or in his theological system, 
generally gives the first place to the Spirit. On the 
contrary, the realization of the importance of the Spirit 
in the Christian life comes comparatively late in the case 
of the individual, as it has come in that of the Christian 
church. What I mean is that the Spirit as the proxi- 
mate cause of the new life is nearer to us, and as a 
fact is more readily apprehended. 

The great and important fact which gives the evi- 
dence its value is the immanence of the Spirit. It is 
not altogether easy to put into words what is meant by 
this indwelling. We know too little of the nature of 
spirit, and of the relation of spirits to each other, to 
be able clearly to express what is involved in this fact. 
But this much it certainly means, that there is in the 
soul of the believer an immediate and abiding mani- 
festation of the Holy Spirit in his essence and his ac- 
tivity. | 

It is not the personality but the power of the Spirit 
that is most prominent." That there is an indwelling 
power of God the Christian is conscious. The side 
of truth represented in pantheism, that God dwells 
in man, is corrected and further applied in the Chris- 
tian doctrine of the Spirit. The Christian knows 
that here is the Divine. In regeneration the centre of 
his life shifted from himself to God, and that not a 
God afar off but a God within. In every act of his 
Christian life, in all his struggles with sin and all his 
efforts after holiness, in all his Christian service, he 
knows the presence of this power of God. I think it 
would be true to say that the Christian’s certainty of 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 2238 


the agency of God in the new life and his certainty of 
the agency of the Spirit are identical. The further 
knowledge is simply the recognition of the fact that 
this indwelling God, as known directly in the new lie, 
does not exhaust the reality of God, that there is 
more beyond. 

The great stress that is laid upon the presence of 
the Spirit in the evidence of Christianity delineated in 
the Bible shows that the sacred writers regarded this 
as the fundamental fact in comparison with the knowl- 
edge of Christ and of God the Father. The presence 
of the Spirit zs the evidence. The apostles asked their 
disciples whether they possessed the Spirit, and ex- 
pected them to be able to answer whether this was the 
case or not (Acts xix. 2). It is true they had in mind 
miraculous, as well as ordinary, evidences of the Spirit’s 
presence. But the principle is the same, whether the 
proof be that of miracles or of a regenerate heart. It 
is the presence of personal indwelling divine power, 
guiding and shaping the man, and moving him to holy 
thoughts and acts. 

The Christian, under the guidance of the objective 
revelation, is thus able distinctly to recognize the in- 
dwelling Spirit. 

b. The next step in the evidence is more difficult. 
In attempting our scientific verification of it we must 
remember that we have to do with a unique element 
in a unique experience. The analogies we may draw 
from other spheres of human knowledge will only 
serve us in part and will inevitably bring us into trou- 
ble if we press them too far. Nevertheless, I think 
we may show that our procedure is reasonable, and our 
conclusions valid. The Christ is known through the 


224 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Spirit. This is the constant teaching of revelation, 
and it is consistent with all its other teachings con- 
cerning the Christ. He is not here but risen and as- 
cended to heaven. Hence we cannot know him in the 
same way that we know the Spirit. To claim that we 
do so is to subvert all the teachings of the Gospel. 
The Saviour did not mean that his disciples should 
have immediate knowledge of him in his humanity, 
as they had when he was on earth. It was expedient 
that he should go away, and as he has gone away, so 
he is to come again. Meantime he is in heaven, and 
his work on earth and his communication with his dis- 
ciples are through the Spirit. 

But it is reasonable to conclude that if he is a real 
living power, working from his invisible throne, he 
should be known through his works, and most of all 
through the work in the Christian’s inward life of 
which the direct or proximate cause is the Spirit. It 
is not unscientific to claim that an ultimate cause 
should be known through the effects of a proximate 
cause. The fact that there are intervening agencies— 
or in other words, that the ultimate cause does its 
work through means—is altogether according to the 
analogy of causation in other and lower spheres. The 
king is known by the acts of his ‘servants performed 
under his authority. We know the spirits of our fel- 
low-men through physical agencies producing sense-im- 
pressions upon our consciousness, and who shall say 
that this is not as certain and satisfying as any kind of 
knowledge? Our hermit spirits do not range apart in 
their separate spheres to such an extent as to make 
their rational fellowship with each other impossible. 

However unique the relation of the believer to Christ 


THH VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 225 


through the Spirit may be, there is nothing unscientific 
in the evidence he claims to have of the Saviour’s liv- 
ing power and spiritual presence. The Christian is 
indeed dependent here, as elsewhere, on the objective 
Gospel, and perhaps to a greater extent than elsewhere. 
But he is able to recognize his Lord in his experience. 
The new life which the Spirit produces is the proof 
that Christ is upon the throne; it comes only to those 
who comply with his conditions and exercise faith in 
him, and it comes to allsuch. It bears his mark upon 
it. The new man is created in the image of Christ. 
The handiwork bears the impress of both his divin- 
ity and his humanity; it manifests at once the pro- 
phetic, priestly, and kingly efficiency of the Saviour. 
The believer looks up to Christ through the Spirit, 
and knows himself to be a member of his mystical 
body. Through the Spirit he lives in communion with 
Christ. 

Iam anxious not to claim too much here. I know 
that it is only slowly that the Christian is able to trans- 
fer the conceptions of Christ furnished by revelation to 
the Being whom he knows through the Spirit. I am 
aware of the danger of assuming to know Christ after 
the flesh. But I think it is not too much to say that 
the Christian has from the beginning a first-hand 
knowledge of the Saviour, which comes to him with 
an evidence that not only satisfies his religious need but 
also his scientific need. 

c. The Christian’s knowledge of the Father through 
the Spirit and the Christ is even more unique than his 
knowledge of the Christ. This is the sanctuary of 
Christian experience, this deep, sacred apprehension of 
the hidden Source and Principle of the Godhead, the 

15 


226 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


divine Person who dwelleth in the light which no man 
can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor ean 
see (1 Tim. vi.16). Revelation has much to tell of him 
in his redemptive manifestation of himself to the world. 
But the Christian who has been regenerated and for- 
given, who hascome into fellowship with Christ through 
the Spirit, finds an access to the Father which fully 
verifies all that the Gospel teaches as to the nature and 
character of this adorable First Person of the Trinity. 
To the believer the Father reveals himself as he does 
not unto the world. The new life, which is a revela- 
tion of the Spirit and the Christ, is through them a 
revelation of the Father. The Apostle John tells us 
the secret; the inmost cause of the Christian life is 
known through the effect: “Everyone that loveth is 
begotten of God and knoweth God. He that loveth 
not knoweth not God; for God is love. . . . No 
man hath beheld God at any time; if we love one 
another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in 
us; hereby know we that we abide in him, and he in 
us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we 
have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent 
the Son to be the Saviour of the world ” (1 John iy. 
7-14). This is scientific evidence, the causes, proxi- 
mate and ultimate, known through the effect. I fear 
it is because we as Christians have so little of the life 
of God in us, that we know so little of the Father, the 
God of redemption, the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

(4.) It is characteristic of a scientific proof of the 
reality of objects known through actual contact that it 
is confirmed and strengthened as the experience is con- 
tinued, There is a certainty of the fact which, as we 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENCE. 227 


have seen, is complete from the first; but there isa 
certainty respecting the nature of the fact which is 
capable of enlargement and verification. No test could 
be better or more scientific than that which comes from 
the continuance and increase of experience. In the 
Jong run truth establishes itself and error fails. Now 
the fact that the experience of the Christian in its ad- 
vancing stages confirms the truth of Christianity is a 
matter of no small importance. If the concepts which 
the objective revelation furnishes were not true, they 
could not be verified by the progress of the new life. 
Whatever possibilities there might be for deception in 
the earlier stages of the Christian life, this deception 
would be sure to manifest itself as time went on. But 
no evidence of the reality of the experience could be 
better or more convincing than the fact that, as time 
goes on, the certainty of the Christian enlarges and 
deepens, and he more and more verifies by actual con- 
tact the contents of the notions furnished by the Gos- 
pel. 

Sanctification in its progress is the confirmation of 
the new life begun in regeneration. The holy seed 
then implanted grows into the great tree of the new 
manhood. The great Christian realities, Father, Christ, 
and Holy Spirit, become more and more real and cer- 
tain to the Christian in the course of his experience, 
and more and more he is able to transfer the truth of 
revelation, which he has received at second-hand, to the 
real Beings whom he knows in his personal experience. 
His communion with them becomes more and more 
real. The correlation of prayer and providence gTOWs 
increasingly unmistakable. Faith does not, it is true, 
lose its essential character and turn into sight, but it 


228 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


increasingly vindicates its claim to knowledge, flowing 
in ever deeper channels and witha steady and constant 
stream that betokens reality and power. 

When we consider the evidence upon which men 
base the larger part of their daily conduct, to what a 
small extent actual first-hand knowledge enters in, how 
much depends upon hypotheses and analogies more or 
less reasonable, how much upon the unverified testi- 
mony of others, how much upon mere instinct—when 
we consider this, and compare with it the increasing 
evidence which the Christian has in his advancing re- 
ligious experience, it is not too much to say that we 
have a far better foundation for the reality of the 
things we are concerned with in our spiritual life than 
for that of the things of our secular life.” 

(5.) One of the ultimate tests of knowledge—than 
which none is more scientific, whatever be the depart- 
inent of human investigation—is agreement among 
those who have access to the facts. In the sphere of 
physical science this test is of the highest value. The 
individual may be wrong in his conclusions and may be 
deceived in his experiments. There is room for many 
deceptions in the interpretation of facts known through 
the contact of actual experience. For this reason the 
men of science unite together in their investigations, 
supplementing the work of the one by that of the 
many. And when a fact is verified by the investiga- 
tions of all, when the experiment yields the same re- 
sult in all hands, then there is the strongest ground for 
accepting its reality. 

This test Christianity triumphantly sustains. We 
do not claim, it is true, that it discloses a knowledge 
possessed by all or admitted by all. That would be 


THE VERIFICATION OF THE EVIDENOR. 229 


contrary to the nature of Christian experience, which is 
not universal but confined to those who accept the con- 
ditions of Christ laid down in the Gospel. But it is a 
fact not to be denied, that all who conform to the con- 
ditions and enter the kingdom of God by the willing 
acceptance of Christ make the same discoveries. I do 
not mean that all Christians give the same account of 
their experience either doctrinally or philosophically. 
Ail I assert is that they are in agreement about the 
great facts themselves, and that they give their assent, 
on the ground of what they have themselves passed 
through, to the teachings of the objective revelation, 
asserting its truth to reality. 

Multitudes in all ages have tried the Gospel method 
and have found peace in believing. The new life, the 
persons and work of the Father, Son, and Spirit, the 
forgiveness of sins, and all the other Christian facts, 
have become realities tothem. In this class have been 
included the best and noblest men who have ever lived. 
The keenest and most cultured intellects have found 
their highest satisfaction in this realm of knowledge. 
Men without number have given their lives in attesta- 
tion of their conviction that these sacred facts are what 
Christianity claims. As the world has advanced in 
knowledge and wisdom, the number of believers has 
not diminished but, on the contrary, wonderfully in- 
creased. ‘T'o-day, in the full light of this remarkable 
century, the number is far greater than ever before. 
The most successful men in every department of hu- 
man endeavor are numbered among them. If any 
value is to be attached to the character and influence of 
its adherents, Christianity can make a stronger showing 
for its truth than any opinion or any belief. If good 


230 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


testimony is to carry the day—by which I mean the 
testimony of the men and women who in other matters 
are considered the most trustworthy—no system of 
scientific truth has a tithe of the evidence in its favor 
which Christianity possesses. 

In conclusion, let me very briefly recall to you the 
ground over which we have passed in this lecture. My 

object was to show that the evidence of Christian ex- 
perience is scientificall y verifiable. We saw that there 
are three kinds of knowledge, the knowledge of neces- 
sary truths, the knowledge of real existences, and the 
knowledge of probability. We identified the knowl- 
edge of Christian experience with the second kind, the 
knowledge of real existences. We saw that the great 
task of all science is to transform probable knowledge 
into real knowledge by means of experiment. Then, 
taking up the elements of Christian experience one by 
one, I tried to show that the evidence with which we 
are dealing is truly scientific; it is a progressive trans- 
formation of the probable knowledge that comes to 
men through the Word and the church into a real and 
personally experienced knowledge by actual trial, a 
trial in which the individual Christian finds the reality 
of his own experience verified by the testimony of all 
who, like him, have put the Gospel to the test. 

I cannot but think that we have succeeded in our at- 
tempt. If we have not done so, if my presentation of 
the subject has failed to make the evidence clear and 
reasonable, the fault lies with me, not in any defect of 
the evidence itself. That is strong and irrefutable. 
If I have failed, others will do successfully what I 
have tried to do. 


LECTURE VII. 
PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 


In discussing a subject so important as that with 
which we are engaged it is not enough to state the 
positive evidence adducible in its favor. The objec- 
tions brought forward by its opponents ought also to 
be candidly stated, carefully weighed, and satisfacto- 
rily answered. My chief difficulty in presenting this 
side of the subject is to find any systematic statement 
of the objections to the evidence of Christian experi- 
ence. The adversaries of Christianity are wont with 
a certain impatience to brush away the evidence de- 
rived from this source as unworthy of consideration, 
and to devote their attention exclusively to the ex- 
ternal evidence, especially the historical. Even the 
friends of the Christian system who reject this experi- 
mental proof pass it by with scant recognition. In 
spite, however, of this absence of formal and carefully 
stated counter-arguments, it will not be impossible to 
supply the deficiency in a good degree, and I trust I 
shall be able to do it with some measure of success, 
and at the same time with the fairness indispensable to 
such a discussion. 

I shall gather the numerous objections which suggest 
themselves under two heads, the philosophical and ihe 
theological. We shall examine the former in the 
present lecture, leaving the latter for our next meeting. 


232 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


I. The first objection touches the possibility of the 
Christian experience. It is based upon the assumption 
that all knowledge is confined to sensible things, and 
that therefore Christian experience, which claims to 
be concerned with supersensible and spiritual things, is 
not entitled to credence. This whole realm of spiritual 
realities is declared to be illusory, the creation of the 
pious imagination, the baseless fabric of a vision which 
must fade before the scrutiny of science and vanish, 
leaving not a rack behind. 

This objection takes different forms according to 
the particular system of philosophy from which it 
springs. A modern philosophical writer upon the 
evidences of Christianity has said: “He who in our 
day wishes to prove the Christian faith will from the 
first have to contend with two classes of scientific Op- 
ponents. Those of one class say: *N othing is cap- 
able of proof, therefore faith also is incapable of it.’ 
Those of the other: ‘Everything is capable of proof 
with the exception of faith.’”? To the first class be- 
long the positivists and agnostics, to the second the 
materialists. 

The positivists assert that we know nothing but 
phenomena, that is, sensations. Whether these facts 
known in consciousness have a cause—in other words, 
whether there is an objective reality corresponding 
to them—is a matter with which we have no concern. 
The positive philosopher or man of science will re- 
nounce all metaphysical speculation and confine him- 
self to the investigation of phenomena in their co- 
existences and sequences—that is to say, he will 
confine himself to sensations and their relations. 
The sensations, or sense-phenomena, are fundamen- 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 233 


tal and essential. If there seem to be a higher class 
of phenomena which we might call spiritual, these are 
to be explained exclusively through the sense-phe- 
nomena. 

The agnostics admit that there is an objective 
Reality and go so far as to clothe it with the meta- 
physical attributes of God. They even declare that 
the relation in which men stand to this Reality in- 
volves all that is essential in the idea of religion. 
But all that seems thus to be given is taken away 
when we discover that the great Reality or Cause is 
unknown, and that the religion conceded has for its 
meagre creed the proposition “ that the Power which 
the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable.” ? 
Having granted the existence of the unknown Reality, 
the agnostic withdraws, like the positivist, into the 
region of phenomena, that is, of sensations. He de- 
clares that the work of the philosopher is to explain 
this world of phenomena, which constitutes his uni- 
verse, in “‘ terms of matter, force, and motion.” * 

The materialist at first seems to be at the very 
opposite pole from the agnostic and positivist. The 
latter, although they assert that the sense-phenomena 
which we call material are all that we can know, yet 
deny that we can have any knowledge of a reality called 
matter. The materialist, on the contrary, starts with 
the reality of matter and energy as his fundamental 
assumption. He will explain all things through these 
causes, to which he ascribes the metaphysical attri- 
butes which the theist predicates of God—eternity, 
unchangeableness, and the like. But in spite of the 
apparent contradiction, the positivist and the agnostic 
agree at the bottom with the materialist. I waive the 


234 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


question as to the self-consistency of materialism, and 
whether if this inconsistency were corrected the ma- 
terialist would not become a positivist or agnostic, 
as the great modern historian of materialism, Lange, 
is a Neo-Kantian.*. What I assert is that the three 
philosophies, by making sensation the exclusive source 
and element of human knowledge, occupy essentially 
the same ground. They agree in denying that there 
is any higher sphere than that of the sensible. 

Various reasons might be given for the prevalence 
of this view at the present time. The thoughts of 
men are engrossed with the things of sense. The mad 
modern chase after wealth and material well-being has 
something to do with it. The tendency of scientitie 
investigation, by directing men’s thoughts to sensible 
things, has had its share in bringing about the result. 
But whatever the reason, there can be no doubt as to 
the fact. There are multitudes of thinking men to 
whom the words of Mephistopheles are applicable to- 
day : 


** Was ihr nicht tastet steht euch meilenfern ; 
Was ihr nicht fasst, das fehlt euch ganz und gar ; 
Was ihr nicht rechnet, glaubt ihr, sei nicht wahr; 
Was ihr nicht wagt, hat fiir euch kein Gewicht, 
Was ihr nicht miinzt, das, meint ihr, gelte nicht.” 5 


The higher spiritual sphere is for them non-existent. 

But we appeal from these false philosophies to a 
better and higher. We assert that we can have knowl- 
edge of real causes, and that we are thus brought out 
of the circle of sensation into that of spirit. We as- 
sert that even in the realm of phenomena the spiritual 
facts have quite as much right of existence as the facts 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 235 


of sense, and that there is no reason in the nature of 
consciousness why we should give exclusive and funda- 
mental validity to the latter.° Our spiritual experi- 
ences are quite as real as our sensible experiences, and 
as we know the material world through the latter, cog- 
nizing the cause in the effect, so we know the spiritual 
world through the former, self, our fellow-men, God. 
The proof has already been given in the second lec- 
ture, and I will not repeat it here. But let me say 
before leaving the subject, that the earnestness and 
vigor of the assault made upon Christianity by the 
philosophies of which I have just spoken, is largely due 
to the fact that their advocates see clearly the insepa- 
rable union between Christianity and that philosophy 
which we have called theistic, or I might say, be- 
tween Christianity and every form of spiritual phi- 
losophy. They stand or fall together. The spiritual 
philosophy and Christianity are not connected as foun- 
dation and superstructure, in such a way that you 
could destroy the superstructure and leave the founda- 
tion intact. Rather they are related as root and tree, 
reciprocally connected parts of the same organism, so 
united that if yon destroy the tree the root will die. 
The fight of the positivist, agnostic, and materialist is 
not against the spiritual philosophy in its unchristian 
forms, as it is not against natural religion, but against 
spiritualism and theism as represented in Christianity. 
Let them succeed in disproving the spiritualistic and 
theistic basis of Christianity, and their work is done. 
Thus, without intending it, these philosophers pay 
the highest tribute to the truth of Christianity. The 
experience of the Christian carries with it the strongest 
positive proof of the spiritual philosophy and of theism, 


236 HVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


and so the most powerful refutation of the philosophy 
of sense. ‘The man who has passed through the great 
crisis of conversion and has emerged into the realm of 
the Christian realities knows by the best and most cer- 
tain evidence that he himself is a spirit, and that there 
isan absolute Spirit, as he knows also that he is one of 
a great realm of finite spirits. It is an evidence that 
satisfies his intellect as completely as it does his heart. 
He even gains an invincible proof of the existence of 
a material world. Christianity is necessarily realistic, 
and its peculiar experience is the great evidence of the 
truth of realism. With truth Frank declares, “For 
the Christian, by virtue of his faith, by virtue of all 
that makes hima Christian, the objective reality, in the 
first place, of the spiritual world in which he lives, and. 
with this at the same time also of the physical world, 
is decided.”” The opponent has no arguments at 
his disposal to shake this evidence. The irrefutable 
counter-argument which the Christian brings is his 
own knowledge. If the materialist or agnostic insist 
that they have no such knowledge, the Christian de- 
clares that they may have it if they will. Let them 
once put themselves in the position to make trial of the 
Christian offer, testing its truth by fair experiment, and 
they will obtain an evidence of the existence of God, 
and of their own free personality as related to God— 
yea, also of the existence of the world itself—which 
will be indubitable. 

II. This brings us to the second objection, namely, 
that our evidence is based on a private and particular 
experience. 7 | 

This is a plausible but very superficial objection. 
It implies, in the first place, an entire misunderstand- 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 237 


ing of the nature of the experimental evidence. That 
this evidence should be confined to a part of mankind 
is seen to be necessary as soon as we examine it. It is 
based upon the actual experience of redemption. But 
redemption is a change of the man from sin to holi- 
ness, from a wrong relation to God to a right relation 
to him. It implies the presence and efficiency of God’s 
redemptive grace. It is accomplished only through 
the activity of the Father, the Christ, and the Holy 
Spirit. In order to become the subject of redemption, 
a man must pass through the great change of regenera- 
tion or conversion, and actually and consciously enter 
the sphere in which Father, Christ, and Spirit perform 
their work of grace. If all men are sinners—and that 
is one of the essential presuppositions of Christian ex- 
perience—only those who have been born again can 
possess the evidence of which we are speaking. It is 
utterly impossible to attain it in any other way. 

This, however, is wholly reasonable. It corresponds 
to the method of all practical or experimental evi- 
dence. There is only one way in which alleged facts 
or truths can be thus tested, and that is by conforming 
to the conditions under which experiment is possible. 
Only those who conform to these conditions secure the 
evidence. Others may accept it at second-hand upon 
the testimony of men who have tried, but this second- 
hand knowledge involves only probability, not cer- 
tainty. The objection, if admitted as valid, would do 
away with the larger and more important portion of 
human knowledge. For the field of knowledge is 
practically unlimited and only a part of it explored by 
any one individual, while the fields into which the one 
enters may be wholly unknown to others. Cardinal 


238 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


Newman expresses the truth when he says, “ The cer- 
tainties of the sciences are in the possession of a few 
countries only, and for the most part only of the edu- 
cated classes in those countries ; yet the philosophers of 
Europe and America would feel certain that the earth 
rolled round the sun, in spite of the Indian belief of its 
being supported by an elephant with a tortoise under 
Fete: 8 

Let us look for a moment at this particularism of 
human knowledge. Take the special knowledge in 
any branch of physical science. Tow many men are 
able to look with the astronomer through his telescope 
and spectroscope, and to follow him in his complicated 
mathematical calculations based upon the data thus 
obtained? Yet what would be said of the layman who 
wished to discard the facts of astronomy because the 
knowledge of them is confined to the few? “I have 
never seen this substance or that in the. sun; there- 
fore it is not in the sun. This so-called man of science 
makes some strange assertions on the subject, but the 
knowledge he claims is private and particular, and 
therefore does not count for me!” What kind of rea- 
soning is that? who would accept it for a moment? 
The laws and facts of political economy demand eare- 
ful personal investigation. Shall the man who has 
never had the slightest practical knowledge of com- 
merce and trade deny the accepted principles of the 
science, held by all the schools, whatever their other 
differences, on the ground that they are matters for the 
expert and therefore he is shut off from them? Or, to 
take an instance from a sphere lying closer to our subject: 
Shall the man who has been brought up a waif, without 
parents, amid vicious surroundings, who has never 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 239 


known the tender influences of home, declaim against 
the existence of affection in the closer relations of life, 
on the ground that he never had the experience and 
that only a part of mankind lay claim to happy homes ? 

The truth is, this particularism of knowledge is to 
be found everywhere. Without it the world would be 
one dead level of ignorance; science, art, philosophy, 
morals, religion, would lose their fair and ample pro- 
portions, and shrink into meagre insignificance ; human 
attainment would be cut down to the level of the low- 
est minds; and human progress would cease altogether. 
The fact that the Christian experience is confined toa 
part of mankind does not in any way diminish its 
claims to credence. 

But I would not be understood to place Christian 
experience upon the same level, in respect to its partic- 
ularism, with other kinds of knowledge. The obstacles 
which stand in the way of special knowledge in other 
departments of human investigation are not present 
here. Though it has its particularism, yet there is a 
true sense in which it is universal. 

In the first place, it is rooted in the nature of man 
and in the universal religions experience. There is 
thus a universal element in it, since there is in every 
soul a point of attachment upon which it may lay 
hold. This is the meaning of Tertullian’s affirmation 
respecting the anima naturaliter Christiana.’ Every 
man can find in himself, if he will look, the basis upon 
which Christianity builds, and from the nature of the 
foundation he can learn enough of the superstructure 
to make the assertion of entire ignorance respecting it 
untrue. God reveals himself to every soul, and every 
soul knows itself to be sinful and guilty before God, 


240 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


and in need of redemption, a need that Christianity 
professes to meet and satisfy. 

There is also sufficient provisional evidence in its 
favor to afford a basis for trial. Whatever may be 
the case in heathen lands, in Christian countries the 
Gospel is known and preached to all. The way of sal- 
vation is made plain. The historical and rational evi- 
dences for the truth of Christianity, which are open to 
all men, are everywhere known. If they do not afford 
that certainty which can come through trial alone, they 
furnish grounds of high probability for the truth of 
Christianity. Moreover, the inquirer has the. testi- 
mony of believers, not only of individuals but also of 
the whole body of Christians. This ought to have its 
influence upon him. In every other department of 
human knowledge we give a large place to the testi- 
mony of men whom we have reason to believe reli- 
able. That was a wise saying of Aristotle, “We are 
bound to give heed to the undemonstrated sayings and 
opinions of the experienced and aged, not less than to 
demonstrations ; because, from their having the eye of 
— experience, they behold the principles of things.” 
Curque in arte sua credendum est. The experience 
of others thus becomes the bridge over which we pass 
to an experience of our own. If we have reason to 
believe the men to be trustworthy witnesses, we do 
not hesitate to accept their testimony, and often even 
to stake our lives upon its truth. 

Now the Christian’s testimony with respect to the 
things he has known in his own experience ought to 
have the highest value. The testimony of the Chris- 
tian church, the body of believers, has the highest 
weight. Baxter puts the case truly: “There is so 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 241 


much in it [Christianity] for the use of others, as 
should move them [those not Christians] to make trial ~ 
of that doctrine and religion which others profess to 
receive such effects from ; especially, considering first, 
that they are sober and credible persons, and not light, 
deluded, vain, fantastical people only, that so profess ; 
and if such testimonies shall be refused, and that of 
so many thousand persons of all degrees, ages, and 
sexes, and that in all countries and times, and that in 
a matter of fact, or about the inward experience of 
their own souls; what testimony then should be re- 
garded? And how would human converse be main- 
tained, and human affairs be transacted, if such testi- 
monies as these should be judged invalid 2?” ” 

It remains to be added that Christian experience is 
universal in the sense that it is accessible to all. If 
there were any barrier in the way of entering the new 
life, the case would be different. But there is no such 
barrier. It is true that the Christian experience can- 
not be had, unless the conditions of Christianity are 
complied with; this, as was said a few moments ago, 
is necessary from the nature of the case. But the 
gateway that leads to the kingdom of heaven, though 
narrow, is open to all. The evidence of Christian ex- 
perience is universally valid, though men do not uni- 
versally avail themselves of it.” The question whether 
they shall have it or no lies in their own choice. They 
may have it if they will. 

III. Here, then, we are confronted by the next ob- 
jection, which is directed against the Christian re- 
quirement that the will should be submitted in order 
to enter into the new life. This is said to beg the 
whole question. Of course, if we begin by the re- 

16 


242 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


nunciation of our wills, any belief, however prepos- 
terous, is possible. 

But in spite of the plausibility with which the ob- 
jection is urged, we deny its force. That the evi- 
dence should be accessible only through an act of 
will is perfectly reasonable ; indeed, it is implied in all 
that has been already said with respect to the nature of 
Christian experience and the evidence founded on it. 
And though such an act of will is peculiarly appropri- 
ate in the religious sphere, it is also needful for the at- 
tainment of all practical or experimental evidence in 
every department of human investigation or activity. 
Even in physical science such voluntary entrance into 
the experimental sphere is needful. The great obstacle 
in the way of scientifie progress is the prejudice and 
unwillingness which prevent men from fairly putting 
the facts to the test of experiment. It was to this in- 
fluence of the will that Lord Bacon had reference when 
he said that “the several classes of idols and their 
equipage . . . must be renounced and put away 
with a fixed and solemn determination, and the un- 
derstanding thoroughly freed and cleansed; the en- 
trance into the kingdom of man, founded on the sci- 
ences, being not much other than the entrance into the 
kingdom of heaven, whereinto none may enter except 
as a little child.” ’* One of the most eminent of mod- 
ern German logicians has written in a similar strain: 
“Science is much under the influence of the will ; and 
the truth of knowledge depends upon the purity of 
conscience. The will has no power to resist scientific 
evidence; but scientific evidence is not obtained with- 
out the continuous loyalty of the will.” ™ 

And when it comes to other spheres, to politics and 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 243 


social science, to metaphysics and moral philosophy, 
how are we to explain the enormous divergencies in 
the convictions and opinions of men, except upon the 
assumption that there are many who are unwilling to 
submit themselves to the tests by which alone the facts 
and laws can be known ? 

It stands to reason, therefore, that thus alone can the 
knowledge upon which the evidence we are consider- 
ing rests be acquired. Here, indeed, a higher and more 
complete surrender of the will is required. It is not 
merely asubmission of the intellect to truth, but of the 
whole man, intellect, sensibility, will, to God, to be re- 
generated, justified, sanctified, and glorified. But the 
principle is the same, and the objection has no more 
validity here than in any other department of human 
knowledge. 

After what has been said in the previous lectures 
there is no danger of misunderstanding what is in- 
volved in this act of will. We do not understand by 
faith—as is the case with the Roman Catholics and, 
though more in the past than the present, with many 
Protestants—the voluntary acceptance of a system of 
doctrine without reference to the judgment of the in- 
tellect, or even in contradiction toit. Such abnegation 
of knowledge would not bring us to the higher knowl- 
edge out of which our evidence grows.”* The faith by 
which we enter the Christian life and come into pos- 
session of the experimental truth is an act of personal 
trust in Christ, who is the door to the new sphere of 
experience. That the sinner may thus become a par- 
taker of eternal life, an entire change must be wrought 
in his nature and relations. It is a change he cannot 
effect himself. It is offered to him as the free gift of 


244 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


God on the ground of Christ’s work and through the 
power of his Spirit. He must freely accept the gift 
if he will possess it. 

In our modern philosophical discussions we have 
come to see, as never before, the importance of the 
will as a source of knowledge. Kant tried to prove 
that the theoretical reason gives us no knowledge re- 
specting the highest realities, but he declared that when 
we turn from this unproductive region to that of the 
practical reason, that is, of the will as it stands related 
to the moral nature, the great facts of God, freedom, 
and immortality are revealed to us as necessary postu- 
lates. Kant did not, it is true, admit that these pos- 
tulates give us knowledge in the true sense of the 
term. The most he is willing to say is that the postu- 
lates represent “thoughts the objects of which are 
not impossible.” ’® The practical conduct of life re- 
quires that we should act as if these conceptions stood 
for reality. It cannot be said that Kant made good 
his position. The attempt to write ‘“ No thorough- 
fare ” over the reason in its highest exercise was a fail- 
ure. Moreover, the theoretical and the practical reason 
cannot be divorced from each other. But although 
Kant’s main contentions failed, he nevertheless called 
attention to the hitherto largely neglected fact, that 
men may learn through the activity of the will facts 
that the intellect alone cannot discover. This is pre- 
eminently true in the moral and spiritual spheres. It 
is the truth our Saviour uttered when he declared, 
“We that willeth to do his will shall know of the 
doctrine” (John vii. 17). In this region it is true 
that he that asketh receiveth, he that seeketh findeth, 
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened (Matt. 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 245 


vii. 7, 8). The Saviour himself is the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life (John xiv. 6). The kingdom of redemp- 
tion is accessible only to the soul that is willing to put 
itself wholly at the Saviour’s disposal to shape and 
change it as he will. 

IV. Again, it is objected that the experience to which 
the Christian lays claim and upon which he bases his 
evidence is unintelligible. This objection is made 
sometimes contemptuously, sometimes earnestly, but 
always loudly. The Christian, it is said, with his 
“Janguage of Canaan,” talks in a way that ordinary 
people cannot understand. The so-called experience 
finds no analogy in the ordinary life of men. It is 
incredible, not to say absurd. 

In answer to this objection, while admitting the 
truth, in part at least, of the charge, I affirm that the 
unintelligibility of the Christian experience to the un- 
initiated, so far from being an argument against it, is 
wholly reasonable. In order that we should under- 
stand any system of facts, we must have some basis 
for its understanding in our experience. It belongs to 
the nature of our finite knowledge that new truth can 
be grasped only as it has points of attachment in the 
facts with which we are acquainted. What is alto- 
gether new, that is, completely outside of the circle of 
our experience, is incredible. We are all familiar with 
the story related by Locke, in his famous Essay, of the 
King of Siam who was told by the Dutch ambassador 
that the water in his country became so hard in winter 
that “imen walked upon it, and that it would bear an 
elephant if he were there.” ‘To which,” says the 
philosopher, ‘‘ the King replied: ‘ Hitherto I have be- 
lieved the strange things you have told me, because I 


246 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


looked upon you as a sober, fair man; but now I am 
sure you lie.’” From the monarch’s stand-point the 
conclusion was natural and inevitable. And even 
where men, on account of their respect for the char- 
acter of others, or on the ground of other probable 
evidence, accept the truth that lies outside the sphere 
of their experience, it is measurably an unintelligent 
acceptance. | 

Now, in spite of the fact already noticed, that the 
unconverted man has provisional evidence sufficient to 
make it his duty to accept the Christian offer—evidence 
weighty enough to make his acceptance altogether 
reasonable—the experience must be to a great extent 
unintelligible before he accepts it. Sin has brought 
the race into such a state that the correlation between 
man’s cognitive faculties and the spheres of knowledge 
open to them is disturbed. Christianity gives the only 
adequate explanation of this fact. If men. were what 
they were made to be, they would be open to all kinds 
of knowledge equally. The knowledge of the world, 
of self, of their fellow-men, and of God, would stream 
in upon them with equal light and self-evidencing 
certainty. They would know divine things as easily 
and with as much assurance as they do sensible things. 

But sin has brought in confusion and error. Ido not 
say that this state of things is wholly due to personal 
sin; that would not be true. It is due still more to 
the race-sin, which has entrenched itself everywhere in 
the world of men. Heredity and environment alike 
minister to sin and the disturbance in the soul which 
sin produces. Personal sin adds to the disturbance. 
Archbishop Leighton has said, “The stream of sin 
runs from one age into another, and every age makes 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 947 


it greater, adding somewhat to what it receives, as 
rivers grow in their course by the accession of brooks 
that fall into them, and every man when he is born 
falls like a drop into this main current of corruption, 
and so is carried down with it; and this by reason of 
its strength, and his own nature, which willingly dis- 
solves into it, and runs along with it.”'* It has thus 
come that the knowledge of God and divine things, 
which should be the surest of all our knowledge, is the 
least sure of all, and has been crowded into the back- 
ground, as it were, of man’s thought. What he knows 
best is the world, the things of sense ; what he knows 
next best, or seems to know—for the lower knowledge 
must of necessity be inadequate without the higher—is 
self. 

Accordingly, the unregenerate man is shut off from 
the highest knowledge. It is not only that his knowl- 
edge is imperfect, but also that his intellect is per- 
verted. Hemay be the best and purest of men, viewed 
by the human standard, but while he remains uncon- 
verted the highest sphere is closed to him. He may, 
indeed, be influenced by the external evidence for the 
truth of Christianity, or by the testimony of those who 
have passed through the change of conversion, but he 
ean form no intelligible conception of the nature of the 
experience. As Paul says, “ The natural man,” that is, 
the man who is under the influence of the lower, sinful, 
unregenerate nature, the psuche, “receiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness 
unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are 
spiritually judged” (1 Cor. i. 14). Mark the “can- 
not;” the unintelligibility is a necessary element in 
the spiritual condition of the unconverted man. And 


248 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


what was true in the days of the Apostle is just as true 
to-day. The natural man, so long as he remains such, 
cannot understand. The centre of his being must be 
changed, and he must become a spiritual man, that is, 
one in whom the spirit, the pnewma, the higher or 
God-touched nature, in which the Holy Spirit dwells, 
is predominant. le must be brought into contact 
with God through Christ, his sins must be forgiven, 
his sinful inability must be removed, he must be united 
with the God-man, he must enter into communion with 
the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit. 
Then his eyes will be opened and he will see these 
things as they are. He cannot do it otherwise. Rea- 
son is incompetent to work its way through the maze 
without divine help. 

When a man has come into actual, experimental con- 
tact with the Christian realities, then reason joyfully 
fulfils her office, but until then she has nothing upon 
which to work. As we have seen, reason does not 
create the knowledge of real existence. This must 
come to her from without. It is as useless for her to 
try to evolve the spiritual world of truth out of her 
own resources as it would be to try in the same way to 
evolve the physical world. For reason to know and 
understand either of these worlds, it is needful for her 
to be in contact with it.” 

Upon this point the Christian ought to have the full 
courage of his convictions. It is not easy to do so. 
Ife is held back alike by his sense of his own imper- 
fections and his charity toward his fellow-men. There 
is something in the facts as I have just stated them 
that is repugnant to the unconverted man; all the 
more so if he be a truth-seeking man of philosophical 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 249 


mind, proud of his candor and strong in his moral- 
ity. The Christian claim seems to him arrogant and 
fanatical. His feelings revolt against a classification 
which places him, so far as the highest knowledge is 
concerned, in a lower category than the most ignorant 
old woman who has passed through this alleged Chris- 
tian experience, or the most abandoned criminal who 
has become, as he claims, converted. If he is a man 
who is not only a truth-seeker, but also self-righteous 
and contemptuous toward those of less attainments in 
worldly knowledge than himself, or those whose pre- 
vious wrong-doing stands in strong contrast to his own 
morality, his repugnance to the Christian assertion 
that he is a sinner, resting under God’s displeasure, 
and for this reason debarred from the highest knowl- 
edge, is still stronger. 

You remember the answer the Duchess of Bucking- 
ham made to Lady Huntingdon, when the latter invited 
her to come and hear the great preacher, Whitefield : 
“Tt is monstrous,” she said, “to be told that you have 
a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl 
on the earth. This is highly offensive and insult- 
ing.” The feeling is not always expressed as frankly 
as it was by this proud woman, but it is present in 
every age. It is one of the most common forms in 
which the unconverted heart manifests its actual con- 
dition—pathetic, not ludicrous, when we consider what 
it indicates. But I am inclined to think that Chris- 
tians in these days, with a delicacy which in some re- 
spects does credit to them, but which is after all unjus- 
tifiable, are too shy of pressing the truth closely home 
upon their opponents. They fear they shall be setting 
themselves up as superior beings, if they fall back upon 


250 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENOE. 


their knowledge through Christian experience, and 
they would rather meet the objector with arguments 
drawn from history or the natural reason than with 
the real evidence upon which their faith rests. They 
are not above shrinking from the sneer with which they 
know they will be met; they are a little ashamed of 
what is most sacred to them. 

The prime characteristic of our recent Christianity 
is its tolerance. Now undoubtedly tolerance is a 
Christian virtue, and like all Christian virtues very 
lovely. In times past it has been too much neglected. 
But remember that tolerance is not the only virtue in 
the Christian galaxy. Remember also the good an- 
cient ethical doctrine of the golden mean. Virtues 
may become vices by excess as well as by defect. It 
is possible for tolerance to go to the extent of laxity. 
In our eagerness to admit the good there is in certain 
unbelievers whose names stand high on the rolls of sci- 
ence and literature we are often untrue to our faith. 
Because they are good, pure, honest, truth-seeking 
men, living according to their lights, we are afraid of 
setting ourselves self-righteously above them, when we 
assert that they are sinners and must be converted, if 
they are to be competent to speak with reference to 
this highest sphere of knowledge. 

In saying this let me not be understood as judging 
them. God may see in them such a susceptibility for 
his grace that he may find ways of saving them. I 
humbly believe that he will ultimately save many such 
men, and that we—if God in his wonderful grace also 
saves us—shall see them in heaven bowing before the 
Lamb and rejoicing in the knowledge that comes 
through him. But what God may do with such men 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 251 


is one thing, and our duty, as men intrusted with the 
Gospel of his grace, is another. What I assert is that 
while such men lack the higher experience, they are 
excluded from the realm of knowledge in which the 
humblest and most undeveloped Christian moves. 

Let us be true to our convictions. It is not self- 
righteousness on our part. We are quite too self-con- 
scious in such matters. The Christian has nothing to 
boast of, and just in proportion to the reality of his 
Christianity is he far from the danger of self-righteous- 
ness. It is God’s grace which we are called upon to 
magnify, and the power of Christ by which the 
Christian, in himself no better than the unconverted 
man, perhaps far worse, has been laid hold of and 
lifted up into a new and higher life. We need not 
undervalue the achievements of the human intellect in 
the spheres of purely worldly knowledge, though doubt- 
less these are due to the silent and unperceived influ- 
ences of Christianity to a far greater extent than is 
commonly supposed. 

Men like those of whom I spoke a moment ago are 
in their sphere truly great. God forbid that the 
Christian should detract one iota from their true 
worth! The truth they have brought to light is 
real truth. It is God’s truth. They have taken 
one department of knowledge and made remarkable 
attainments in it. We ought gratefully to accept 
what they have given us, so far as it is truth, and to 
have the highest respect for their teachings on all the 
subjects with which they are conversant. But if such 
men are not converted men, brought under the power 
of Christ and living in communion with God through 
him, there is a true sense in which the least in the 


252 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


kingdom of heaven is greater than they. Let such 
men come to the consideration of Christian truth in 
the same spirit with which they approach the facts of 
science and philosophy, and there can be no doubt that 
they will be satisfied. 

We admit, then, the unintelligibility of the Christian 
experience to the unconverted man, and claim that it 
is not an objection to the reality of our evidence but a 
point in its favor. It must needs be so. “O quam 
difficilis,” says Lactantius, “ est ignorantibus veritas, et 
quam facilis scientibus!” The proof that carries radi- 
ant conviction to the reason of the converted man 
must from the nature of the case be without force to 
the unconverted. But this evidence the inquirer may 
have if he will. We point to the open door, to the 
Christ who stands at it, and to the simple conditions 
of entrance. Our argument becomes an appeal: ‘We 
beseech you in Christ’s behalf, Be ye reconciled to 
God. For God was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ; 
and hath committed unto us the word of reconcilia- 
tion ” (2 Cor. v. 19, 20). 

Y. It is objected, in the next place, that the view of 
Christian experience and its evidence here presented 
gives rise to an irreconcilable dualism in human knowl- 
edge. Ilere are facts which to the ordinary intellect 
of man are unknowable and unintelligible, while in 
the religious sphere they are claimed to be true. This, 
our opponents declare, is a revival of the old doctrine, 
so often and so justly condemned, of the “double 
truth,” namely, that a proposition may be at the same 
time false in philosophy and true in theology. 

But, in reply, we assert that our view is very dif- 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 253 


ferent from the doctrine of the double truth. This 
doctrine we reject as strenuously and with as much 
abhorrence as our adversaries can possibly do. It has 
always been a two-edged sword and has exposed those 
who have wielded it to the gravest dangers. One can 
never avoid the suspicion that it must be accompanied 
with more or less of insincerity. It is equally objec- 
tionable as maintained by men like Pomponatius and 
Bayle in the interests of scepticism, or Christians like 
Hamilton and Mansel in the interests of religion. 
The condemnation accorded to it by the Sorbonne in 
the fifteenth century was wholly justified and did not 
deserve the abuse heaped upon it by Luther, Pfleid- 
erer has well called it ‘ the fig-leaf of a shamefaced or 
still half-unconscious scepticism.” What it meant 
in the hands of the English philosophers of whom I 
have spoken is shown by the use made of it by Ter- 
bert Spencer and his agnostic school. 

I do not deny that Christians themselves have given 
more or less ground for the charge made against them 
in this objection. The Roman Catholic doctrine that 
the theological system of the church is to be received 
in the bulk on the authority of the church opens the 
way for such a dualism. . For it may readily happen 
that what is thus received will contradict what the 
reason affirms. So the Protestant doctrine, so widely 
held, that we are to reccive the system of doctrine on 
the bare authority of the Bible, leads to similar re- 
sults. 

But we present no such view as this. We declare 
that there is only one truth, though there are grades in 
the knowledge of that truth. If the man who stands 
outside of the sphere of the Christian facts uses his 


254 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN EX PERIENCE. 


reason directly upon them, instead of taking the more 
rational course of subjecting them to the test of ex- 
perience, they will indeed be foolishness to him. But 
this is an unjustifiable use of his reason, like that of 
the unlearned man who attempts to criticise the truth 
known only to the man of science. The facts that are 
true to the converted man may appear false to the un- 
converted man, but it will be only because the latter is 
incompetent to judge. 

The famous words of Tertullian, ‘“ Credibile est, 
quia ineptum est; certum est, quia impossibile est,” ” 
express In paradoxical form the truth that the foolish- 
ness of the natural man is the reason of the spiritual 
man. ut they are furthest from teaching the double 
truth. According to that most reprehensible doctrine, 
there are two realms of knowledge which stand in con- 
tradiction to each other. According to our doctrine, 
which is that of the Christian church in all ages, there 
is a realm of knowledge and a realm of ignorance, a 
realin of truth and arealm of error. The contradiction 
is in the man who attempts to view the truth from the 
stand-point of error. Let the scales drop from the eyes, 
and the contradiction vanishes. If the eye be single 
the whole body is full of light ; but if the eye be evil 
it is all darkness.”* 

It is because philosophy is capable of being de- 
veloped from the stand-point of the natural man, and is 
often so developed, that it seems to come into contra- 
diction to theology, or to the facts of Christian experi- 
ence upon which theology, in subordination to the 
teachings of revelation, is based. It is a mistake to 
suppose that the great fundamental problems can be 
successfully solved by the man who is in possession of 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 255 


only a part of the facts of the universe. A man can- 
not philosophize in the highest sense and with success 
unless he has access to the highest sphere. The phi- 
losophy of the natural man will always be defective. 
But let philosophy be developed from the stand-point 
of Christian experience with its higher knowledge, and 
the case is wholly different.“ Then there is no contra- 
diction but only harmony. 


‘“‘ Philosophy baptized 
In the pure fountain of eternal love 
Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees, 
As meant to indicate a God to man, 
Gives him the praise, and forfeits not her own.” ”° 


VI. An objection closely allied to the last affirms 
that in the evidence of Christian experience we found 
our alleged facts upon feeling rather than knowledge, 
upon faith in contradistinction from reason. 

Here again it is to be admitted that a certain excuse 
for the objection has been afforded by the ill-judged 
representations of Christians themselves, not simple 
Christians giving account of the faith that is in them, 
but philosophical Christians endeavoring to give a 
scientific ratzonale of faith. Undoubtedly the systems 
of Jacobi and Schleiermacher in Germany are open to 
this objection. It was thus that Jacobi could say that 
he was “ with the head a heathen and with the heart a — 
Christian.” It was thus that Sir William Hamilton, 
after declaring the intellect impotent to discover God 
and freedom, fell back upon faith for the evidence of 
the truth which he conld not relinquish, yet felt him- 
self unable to prove.” The attempt of Kant to rescue 
by the practical reason the great truths of God, free- 


256 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


dom, and immortality, which are undiscoverable by the 
theoretical reason, may fairly be placed in the same 
category. 

But the retreat from the open field of the intellect 
into the stronghold of the feelings or of faith, how- 
ever well meant, is a confession of defeat. It is not a 
defence but a surrender. It is a matter for profound 
congratulation that the best Christian thought of our 
age 1s thoroughly awake to the dangers of this doctrine 
and anxious to avoid even the appearance of advocat- 
ing it.” Yet we must confess with regret that it still 
finds considerable acceptance among Christians who 
are too indolent to work their way through to a valid 
philosophical defence of Christianity, and therefore 
avail themselves of this easy way of shirking the whole 
difficulty. It is to be hoped that the time is not far 
distant when sober-minded and rational Christians will 
be ashamed to have recourse to this device. 

In the evidence of Christian experience, however, as 
it has been presented here, no such recourse has been 
had to feeling or faith, or, I might add, to the practi- 
cal as distinguished from the theoretical reason. We 
employ the same faculties and the same methods of 
reasoning which we use in the other departments of 
human knowledge and investigation. The difference 
lies in the objects of knowledge and the consequent 
difference in the use of our faculties thus called for. 

Our evidence does not rest upon feeling. We do, 
indeed, give this faculty a place, and that an important 
one, in our proof ; but we are furthest from making it 
the organ of religions or Christian knowledge.* Feel- 
ing is a source of knowledge, but it is not a faculty of 
knowledge. There is a great difference between the 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 257 


two, and one which, in the interests of clear thinking, 
ought always to be borne in mind. There is only one 
faculty of knowledge, and that is the intellect. If the 
sensibility were such, we should classify it as an intel- 
lectual power. Sensibility and will are sources of 
knowledge but not faculties of knowledge. The intel- 
lect is both a faculty and a source of knowledge. That 
is to say, the intellect can use the sensibility and will 
as channels of knowledge, or it can use its own pro- 
cesses as such. Modern psychology has laid increas- 
ing emphasis upon the sensibility and the will as 
sources of knowledge, a fact which the older philoso- 
phy, with that rationalistic tendency which was char- 
acteristic of it, almost entirely neglected. But the new 
psychology, like the old, in its most generally accepted 
representatives recognizes only one faculty of knowl- 
edge, namely, the intellect. 

As we have seen, our Christian knowledge is de- 
rived from the intellect, the will, and the feelings, as 
they all bear witness to the presence and activity of 
the Christian realities. It is because the Father, the 
Christ, and the Holy Spirit affect us in all the depart- 
ments of our composite spiritual nature, that we affirm 
their existence and reality. Our Christian certainty 
rests upon the synthesis of the religious impressions 
made upon all our faculties, and the testing and inves- 
tigation of these impressions by the processes of reflec- 
tive thought acting in the light and by the aid of the 
rational intuitions. In this process feeling has an im- 
portant but subordinate place. I think that a thor- 
ough and careful analysis of the Christian conscious- 
ness, especially in the initial experience of the life of 
faith, will show that the effects of the Christian reali- 

17 


258 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


ties upon our wills are of prime importance, while 
those upon our intellects come next, and those upon 
the feelings last. reeling, at least in its higher exer- 
cises, is chiefly the result of the action of the other 
faculties, and reached mediately through their action. 
Moreover, all through the process the especial organ 
of knowledge is our one faculty of knowledge, namely, 
the intellect, working through the various functions of 
self-consciousness or the inner sense, the rational intui- 
tions, and reflective thought. 

The only difference between the apprehension of 
Christian truth and that by which we attain knowl- 
edge of the facts of the material world consists in the 
different objects apprehended, the different parts of 
our nature affected, and the consequent difference in 
the method of thought. The things of the material 
world affect us through the organs of sense; the 
Christian realities, whether they are mediated by the 
senses or not, affect us directly through our spiritual 
susceptibilities. We apprehend the impressions of 
sense through the faculty of sense-perception ; we per- 
ceive the spiritual impressions through the inner sense. 
The perception once accomplished, thought with the aid 
of the rational intuitions does the rest. We know the 
spiritual facts, therefore, in precisely the same rational 
way as we know the material facts. No new faculties — 
are used or required. We could not use them if we had 
them. So far from trusting to mere feeling, we give 
this power the smallest and most subordinate place. 

Before leaving this branch of the subject, I ought to 
call attention to a view which is held by some Chris- 
tian philosophers, who are quite as decided as we in 
denying that the feelings, as distinguished from the in- 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 259 


tellect, are the faculty of religions knowledge, but who 
use a terminology which lays them open to this charge. 
They hold that the raw material of our physical and 
spiritual knowledge is properly called feeling, and they 
teach that from this undifferentiated substratum of 
knowledge the thinking mind derives by a rational 
process the religious facts and truths. An able Amer- 
ican representative of this view says, “Our point of 
mental departure, both in science and religion, alike in 
physics and metaphysics, is feeling. Our knowledge 
of the external world is given in and through sensa- 
tion. Our consciousness is affected so and so; these 
affections or sense-perceptions are grouped in our vari- 
ous conceptions of things; are combined, corrected, 
and held fast in various judgments and beliefs with re- 
gard to anexternal world.”* Again he says, “The per- 
ennial source of religion, opened afresh in every new- 
born soul, is the feeling of absolute dependence.” ® 
And once more, “TI maintain that the religious feeling 
involves perception, and is, therefore, the valid source 
of theology.”” According to this view, therefore, 
feeling is the crude effect in consciousness of all objec- 
tive impressions. Accordingly, spiritual facts are no 
more based upon feeling than material facts. Whether 
this is properly called feeling is a question which it 
seems to me must be answered in the negative. But I 
mention the view not for the sake of criticising it, but 
rather to claim it as in substance the same as that 
which I have presented. 

But if it be not true that our evidence is based upon 
feeling as distinguished from the knowledge of the in- 
tellect, neither is it true that it is based upon faith as 
opposed to reason. I admit that faith has been often so 


260 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


represented as to give color to this view. If the defini- 
tion to which I referred a little while ago in speaking 
of the double truth is correct, if faith is the acceptance 
of a doctrinal system upon authority, then it surely 
might be placed in antithesis, or even opposition, to 
the acceptance of truth on the ground of the free, un- 
constrained assent of the intellect, moved to it by ra- 
tional evidence. But this is not the true idea of re- 
ligious faith, as we saw when first examining the Chris- 
tian experience and its evidence. Faith is primarily 
trust. Its object is not the truth but a person. It 
involves knowledge and feeling, but it is in its essence 
an act of the will. Such it is in the ordinary relations 
of life, in the child’s faith in its parents, or the faith 
of the man of business in his fellow-men of business. 
The object of Christian faith is God in Christ, whom 
we trust for our salvation, putting ourselves into his 
hands and submitting ourselves to him to be his chil- 
dren and followers, intrusting te him our temporal and 
eternal interests. 

Now in no respect does the Christian fly from rea- 
son to faith. Ile does, indeed, as we noticed also when 
considering the doctrine of the double truth, reject the 
dictates of the natural reason, which would dissuade 
him from accepting Christ’s offer and making trial of 
the Christian life, and follows the directions of the 
Gospel and the leadings of the Holy Spirit in his soul. 
But this is the true use of reason, like that use of 
reason which makes the seeker after truth in other de- 
partments of human investigation turn from the sug- 
gestions of sloth or prejudice and submit himself to 
the conditions by the observance of which alone the 
experimental verification of truth is possible, 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 261 


Moreover, by his faith the Christian is brought to a 
still higher exercise of reason. The reason of the 
Christian life is aregenerate reason. The defects which 
inhere in it in the natural man are so far removed that 
it is enabled to attain its true exercise, from which sin 
has debarred it; and more and more in the Christian 
life, as the process of sanctification advances, it becomes 
what it was meant to be, the faculty not only of sensible 
knowledge but also of the higher spiritual knowledge. 
In this sense faith, so far from being opposed to rea- 
son, is the condition of the right use of reason. The 
maxiin of Augustin, which Anselm echoes, “ Fides 
precedit intellectum,” thus becomes true. 

Then, in the redeemed life faith and reason stand in 
the closest and most loving union. No man uses his 
reason more truly or more fully than the Christian. 
The New-Testament never sets faith in opposition to 
knowledge. The only antithesis it makes is between 
faith and sight. Our faith is a trust in unseen Reali- 
ties. But they are not less truly known because they 
are not seen. In the higher state there is to be a new 
relation to the Christian Realities ; they are no longer 
to be seen as in a mirror darkly, but face to face. But 
the antithesis is not between ignorance and knowledge ; 
it is between a lower kind of knowledge and a higher. 

There is, however, another meaning attached to the 
objection. There are some who teach the existence of 
a faith-faculty by which we apprehend the things un. 
seen and eternal. But no such faculty exists or could 
exist.” There is no room for it in the human mind. 
Such a faculty, if it actually existed, would be another 
kind of intellect, having to do with things above sense. 
But our ordinary intellect is quite sufficient for this 


262 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN HX PERIENCE. 


purpose. To multiply faculties beyond the facts is a 
confession of failure to find any rational basis for reli- 
gious knowledge. Nothing is more opposed to the sim- 
plicity of Christian experience than such a method. 
The Christian knowledge is the common knowledge in 
the sphere of the regenerate soul. The illumination 
of the intellect by the divine Spirit, and the new world 
revealed in conversion, imply no change in the ground- 
work of the mind. 

The Christian is tempted, in his conviction of the 
greatness of the difference between the knowledge of the 
natural man and that of the believer, to assert some es- 
sential change in the soul itself, if not in its faculties, 
at least in the basis of those faculties. But this is a 
temptation which should be sternly resisted, as entirely 
Jacking in scriptural and experimental evidence. Our 
great American theologian in his wonderful work on 
the “ Iteligious Affections ”—a work which ought to be 
rescued from the unmerited neglect into which it has 
fallen—has not wholly avoided this temptation. He 
teaches that regeneration produces in the soul a “ taste 
or relish for spiritual things,” which is not, indeed, a 
new faculty but a new principle of nature or new 
spiritual sense, which stands in the same relation to 
the exercises of the soul on the spiritual side, as the 
organs of sense, or the sensorium, on the side turned 
toward imaterial things. He says, “If there be in the 
soul a new sort of exercise which it is conscious of, 
which the soul knew nothing of before, and which 
no improvement, composition, or management of what 
it was before conscious or sensible of, could produce, 
or anything like it, then it follows that the mind 
has an entirely new kind of perception or sensation ; 


4 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 263 


and here is, as it were, a new spiritual sense that the 
mind has, or a principle of a new kind of perception 
or spiritual sensation, which is in its whole nature 
different from any former kinds of sensation of the 
mind, as tasting is diverse from any of the other 
senses. . . . So that the spiritual perceptions 
which a sanctified and spiritual person has are not 
only diverse from all that natural men have, after 
the manner that the ideas or perceptions of the same 
sense may differ one from another, but rather as the 
ideas and sensations of different senses do differ.” Te 
goes on to explain: “This new spiritual sense, and 
the new dispositions that attend it, are no new facul- 
ties, but are new principles of nature. . . . Bya 
principle of nature in this place I mean that founda- 
tion which is laid in nature, either old or new, for any 
particular manner or kind of exercise of the faculties of 
the soul. . . . So this new spiritual sense 
is a new foundation laid in the nature of the soul for 
a new kind of exercises of the same faculty of under- 
standing.” * 

But there is no evidence, except in a figure of 
speech, for the existence of any such new sense for 
spiritual things. The susceptibility for the divine life 
is innate. No soul but possesses it. It is, indeed, per- 
verted by sin and shriveled by disuse. But it still 
exists. What the divine grace does is to restore it to 
its normal exercise and then present to it its appro- 
priate objects. 

VII. Another objection is derived from the relation 
in which Christian experience and its evidence stand 
to the Bible. This book, it is said, describes a certain 
kind of experience which it declares to be essential to 


264 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


salvation. Christians, under the influence of this book 
and of their own imaginations, think that they find a 
similar experience in themselves. Or, if they do not 
actually think so, yet they feel obliged to act and 
speak as if they thought so. If the Bible laid down a 
different rule, they would have a different experience. 
The evidence for the truth of Christianity is derived 
from the correspondence between the Bible and the 
experience, which is thus a matter that is susceptible 
of an entirely natural explanation. 

In answering this objection let us not be tempted 
to deny the true relation in which the experience of 
the Christian stands to the objective revelation, and so 
to the Bible. This relation is essential. Christian 
experience would be impossible without the objective 
revelation. The latter is the conditio sine qua non of 
a normal Christian experience. It is also the constant 
interpreter and guide of that experience. 

But this is far from being the whole. When the 
soul has put the Bible to the test by closing with the 
offers of the Gospel, it attains a first-hand knowledge 
that is in a sense independent of the objective revela- 
tion. In the first stage the inquirer believes on the 
strength of outward testimony. He is like the Samar- 
itans who believed on Christ because of the word of the 
woman, who testified, “ Ile told me all things that ever 
I did.” In the second stage the knowledge is personal 
and immediate, like the belief of those Samaritans 
who heard his word and said to the woman, “ Now we 
believe, not because of thy speaking: for we have 
heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the 
Saviour of the world ” (John iv. 39-42), 

We deny in the strongest terms that Christians, after 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 265 


they have entered by repentance and faith into the 
new life, merely transfer to themselves in imagina- 
tion or under the pressure of Christian opinion the 
experience described in the Bible. Some may do so, 
for it is not to be denied that there are those connect- 
ed with the Christian church who are Christians only 
inname. But this is farthest from being the case 
with the true Christians, who alone should be brought 
into account here. They have an immediate and per- 
sonal knowledge of the reality of redemption and of the 
existence and presence of the Holy Spirit, the Christ, 
and the Father. This is no imagination. They apply 
to it all the tests which philosophy and science furnish, 
and the experience still shows itself to be true. Here 
are effects which reveal the presence of the divine 
Cause as truly as another class of effects in their con- 
sciousness reveal a physical cause. To say that they 
are following mere imaginations when they affirm the 
existence of the divine life within and the presence of 
its divine Authors is absurd. 

It is true that the Christian joyfully accepts the evi- 
dence derived from the correspondence between the 
Bible and his personal experience, but it is because he 
knows the experience to be real, not because the Bible 
tells him that his experience ought to be of this char- 
acter. Indeed, when he has once tasted for himself 
that the Lord is gracious, his relation to the Bible be- 
comes a wholly new one. He now believes the Bible 
not only on grounds of probable evidence but also be- 
cause of his own experience. . It is for this reason that 
he trusts it as his guide and counsellor, and looks to it 
for direction in all the emergencies of life. Because 
he has tested it in the main point, that is, in its prom- 


266 HVIDENOCE OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


ise of the new life through faith in Christ, he is able 
to trust it in other things, and cannot doubt that it is 
true in those matters which he has not yet put to the 
test. 

We therefore wholly deny that the Christian trans- 
fers the contents of the Bible ready-made to his ex- 
perience. On the contrary, it is by his experience that 
he verifies them and obtains the undeniable evidence 
of their truth. 

VIII. Finally, it is objected that the devotees of 
other religions which Christianity declares to be false 
have as undoubting trust in the reality and truth of 
their beliefs as the Christian. 

Granting that this were true, it would not invalidate 
the reality and truth of our evidence. In a world of 
falsehood and error every truth has its opponents 
who are quite sincere in their antagonism. It is not 
Christianity alone that is thus confronted. Philosophy, 
political economy, physical science, can bring forward 
no doctrines that have not been or are not now assailed 
by men quite as honest as those who represent what 
may be called orthodoxy in these departments of 
knowledge and investigation. But this is no disproof 
of the truth. Itis in the defence of itself against such 
opposition that the truth vindicates itself most  tri- 
umphantly. Who would think for a moment that the 
accepted results of modern physical science were inval- 
idated by the honestly held and earnestly advocated 
notions of uncivilized men? Who would think of dis- 
proving the truth of modern medical theories by point- 
ing to the fact that Chinese physicians deal in charms 
and incantations with equal belief in their efficacy ? 
The question is not to be decided by the strength and 


PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS. 267 


honesty of opposing convictions, but by the evidence 
which can be furnished for the truth of those convictious. 

But I am not willing to admit that the followers of 
other religions maintain their beliefs with a confidence 
like that of the Christian. Ido not deny that there 
are many professed Christians who stand on the level 
of the heathen with respect to their beliefs, or even be- 
low the better class of heathen. There are many who 
bear the Christian name upon whom Christian convic- 
tion sits very lightly. The reason is that such persons 
are without the peculiar experience of Christianity. 
They have a form of godliness but not the power 
thereof. ‘We do make a great difference,” says 
Richard Baxter, replying to the objection before us, 
“among Christians themselves, between those that be- 
lieve and love Christ merely upon such prejudice, cus- 
tom, or interest; and those that believe in him and 
love him sincerely, and upon right grounds.” * 

We do not deny that the heathen have some good and 
true grounds for their beliefs. The ethnic religions, 
even in their most corrupt forms, contain much truth, 
and there is no reason to doubt that the followers of 
these religions who use the light they have, come into a 
real contact with God, which gives them a true experi- 
inental evidence of the truth of religion. It is on ac- 
count of this truth and reality that men hold to the so- 
called false religions with so much tenacity, in spite of 
the error which they contain. J am quite willing to 
admit that the sincerity and tenacity of belief which 
we find among such heathen puts to shame the indif- 
ference of our lukewarm Christians. But I do not for 
a moment admit that the assurance of the true Chris- 
tian is on a level with that of even the best heathen. 


268 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


The difference in the things believed and in the grounds 
upon which the belief rests makes the two cases wholly 
different. ‘ Men of other religions,” says Baxter once 
more, “have no such object for faith and love, and no 
faith or love for such an object.” * The intelligent 
faith of the Christian believer in God and Christ, 
based upon first-hand knowledge of the facts, is alto- 
gether different from the faith of the heathen, which, 
granting it a substratum of reality, is mixed with error 
and corrupted by superstition. The Christian is not 
an unthinking devotee ; he is an intelligent man who 
knows what he believes and the reasons why he be- 
lieves it, and who therefore is strong in his certainty 
of the facts upon which his religion is based. 

Looking back now over the course of the present 
lecture, I think we may say with truth that the Chris- 
tian has no reason to fear the objections which philo- 
sophical unbelief can bring against the reality of his 
Christian faith. He is not afraid to meet the challenge 
to subject his experience to the tests of reason. All 
that he asks is a fair investigation, conducted on prin. 
ciples correspondent with the nature of the subject. 
To him Christianity is the highest truth. His only 
fear is that he himself in his ignorance or unskilful- 
ness may not state the proof at its full worth. He 
knows that the truth is on his side. So he is willing 
to enter patiently into the discussion with the philo- 
sophical sceptic and to answer his objections one by 
one. But most of all it is his joy to show to his fellow- 
Christians, who like him are firm in the faith, but de- 
sire to see clearly the evidence on which it rests, the 
strength of the foundations, divine and invincible, of 
their Christian life. 


LECTURE VIII. 
THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 


Tue objections considered in the last lecture are 
urged by men who call in question not only the Chris- 
tian experience but also the common religious experi- 
ence. I wish now to examine the objections of those 
who admit that there is truth and reality in religion, 
but who, for one reason or another, are unwilling to 
accept the account of the Christian experience and its 
evidence that has here been given. In calling the for- 
mer class of objections philosophical, and that which we 
are about to consider theological, I do not mean to im- 
ply that we shall now leave philosophical questions al- 
together behind us. I have meant by the use of the 
terms merely to indicate the exclusively philosophical 
position of the one class of objectors, and the predomi- 
nantly theological stand-point of the other. 

The theological objections themselves fall into two 
classes, according as they are advanced by the oppo- 
nents or the friends of the orthodox system of Chris- 
tian truth. 

I. The unorthodox objection takes the general form 
that while a real truth underlies the Christian experi- 
ence, the distinctively Christian elements in it have no 
objective reality. The Christian facts which, accord- 
ing to our belief, constitute the very essence of Chris- 


, 


270 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tianity, viewed as a system of present, operative 
powers, have only a formal, and not a real, value. The 
evidence upon which we lay so much stress falls thus 
to the ground. 

1. It is objected that the Christian doctrine of a 
supernatural regeneration and sanctification is without 
foundation. Men are indeed sinful, but they are cap- 
able, in the exercise of their own moral powers, of for- 
saking sin and obeying the law of conscience. This 
work involves no divine factors, except in so far as the 
subject of it is influenced by moral and religious truth, 
which has its origin in God and is guided by the di- 
vine providence. If this be the true view, Christian- 
ity carries with it no proof of such divine Realities as 
we claim to know.’ 

This is the objection of the rationalist—or I might 
say, to use a theological designation, of the Pelagian. 
It is connected with that deistical tendency which de- 
nies the distinction between the natural and Christian 
revelations, reduces Christian experience to natural re- 
ligion, and makes natural religion itself a matter of 
merely intellectual belief, of notions rather than reali- 
ties. Its few doctrines are excogitated by the inde- 
pendent and unaided power of the reason. God, im- 
mortality, obedience to the moral law, and future 
rewards and punishments form the meagre creed of 
this bare and cold theology. All the other elements of 
Christianity are held to be unreal and valueless, while 
Christianity itself is a mere “republication of the re- 
ligion of nature,” of worth only so far as it serves to 
further emphasize the few great truths revealed through 
the world and man’s constitution. 

The rationalism I have described is that of the last 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. O41 


century; but although as a system it has become to a 
great extent obsolete, it still exists as a tendency, wide- 
spread and active. Christianity meets the objection 
with an utter denial of its fundamental assertion, based 
upon indubitable facts of experience. It does not 
deny that there is a sense in which this assertion is jus- 
tifiable, as it is certainly honest. From the stand-point 
of the natural man, who is outside of the distinctively 
Christian experience, the rationalistic doctrine seems 
true; man is capable in his own strength of attaining 
the perfection which is consonant with his nature. 
But he who has had the Christian experience knows 
that this belief of the natural man is unfounded. 
There is only one way of escape from sin, and that is 
by the new birth and the forgiveness of sins. The be- 
liever has tried this way. THe has experienced redemp- 
tion. And no fact is more deeply impressed upon him 
than this, that here human power was helpless and di- 
vine power necessary. Moreover, regeneration and 
sanctification are facts in full view of his conscious- 
ness, and through them he is brought into contact with 
the divine Causes, the Spirit, the Christ, and the 
Father. The objection of the rationalist is simply that 
fundamental objection which has met us before in 
various forms, arising from the impossibility that the 
man who stands outside of the Christian experience 
should understand it or do it justice. The advocates 
of this view are doubtless good men. But they turn 
from the reality to the vain show which a proud and 
self.sufficient reason manufactures out of its own sub- 
stance. To them the prophet’s words apply: They for- 
sake the fountain of living water and hew them out 
cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water (Jer. 


972 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


ii. 13). The Christian experience refuses to be evap- 
orated in the alembic of a doctrine so shallow. 

The rationalist, like the philosophical opponent of 
religion, denies that the Christian has any proof of a 
divine Power directly at work in his experience. THe 
differs from the other in that he admits and asserts 
the existence of God. But by so doing he concedes 
all that we ask as the basis of our proof. Christian 
experience is a reality which demands explanation. If 
there be a God, he alone can be its Cause. “ New- 
ton,” says Ueberweg, “did not merely show that the 
motions of the heavenly bodies, according to Kepler’s 
three laws, could be explained with mathematical ac- 
curacy by the law of gravitation ; he showed that a 
sufficient explanation could be given only on the pre- 
supposition of power which acts according to the laws 
of gravitation, and, consequently, that this cause which 
sufficed (causa sufficiens) to produce the effects, and 
which had been shown already to exist as an actual 
power in nature (causa vera) in the power of weight 
upon the earth, was the only one possible.”* In a 
similar way we prove that the divine Cause, admitted 
by the rationalist, is the only possible cause of Chris- 
tian experience. 

2. It is objected that our view of Christian experi- 
ence and its evidence involves an unwarrantable intru- 
sion of metaphysics into the realm of religion. This 
objection has been urged from the side of Kant’s moral 
rationalism, and more recently from that of Ritschl’s 
theology. Let us look at it in both these forms. 

We have seen that Kant denied the ability of the 
theoretical reason to attain to knowledge respecting 
the thing in itself. It has, indeed, its ideas of self, the 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 273 


world, and God; but these are wholly subjective. The 
ordinary metaphysics, which claims to give us a 
knowledge of objective reality, rests upon a delusion. 
But the practical reason has its rights as well as the 
theoretical. Though it cannot give us knowledge of 
supersensible things in the strict sense of the term 
knowledge, yet by its postulates of God, freedom, and 
immortality it lays the basis for religion. Religion, 
accordingly, starting as it does from the postulates of 
the practical reason, is a realm by itself, with its own 
laws and methods, wholly independent of metaphysics. 

In his Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen 
Vernunft* Kant develops his theology. The voice of 
conscience, speaking to the soul in the thunder tones 
of the “‘ categorical imperative,” is the voice of God. 
It has absolute worth and authority. Man cannot dis- 
obey it without proving untrue to himself. Yet, as a 
matter of fact, all men do show themselves thus rec- 
reant. Kant teaches the existence in man of a “ radi- 
cal evil,”* in some respects approximating to the or- 
thodox doctrine of original sin. All men are sinners; 
all men need moral renovation. This is brought about 
by making the law of conscience the highest principle 
of action and living in conformity with it. The king- 
dom of God, that is, the fellowship of all true and good 
men who are laboring to carry out the law of right, is 
the sphere into which the man who is seeking moral 
renovation enters, and where he finds opportunity for 
the exercise of his moral powers. 

The other and higher side of religion, communion 
with God, has no place in Kant’s theology. This fol- 
lows from the exclusion of metaphysics. Teligion is 
to him morality known in its principles and carried 

18 


274 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


out in conformity with its postulates. He allows no 
place in the spiritual life for the distinctively Christian 
facts. [is doctrine of radical evil is not matched by 
a doctrine of regeneration ; the sinner is to be his own 
saviour. To the person of Christ Kant seems, upon 
superficial examination, to attach considerable impor- 
tance, but an understanding of his meaning compels a 
great abatement.from our first impressions. He pre- 
sents the doctrine of an “ ideal Christ,” or Son of God, 
who is neither more nor less than humanity considered 
as well-pleasing to God—a doctrine which reminds us of 
that held by the pantheist Spinoza.’ In so far as this 
ideal finds illustration and enforcement in the life of 
Jesus of Nazareth the person of the latter has worth 
for us. How far the historical Jesus expressed the 
ideal Kant does not undertake to say.” This ideal 
Christ is the object of the believer's faith and the 
source of his moral life and progress. But the Son of 
God who dwells in the Christian remains an ideal, ex- 
cept in so far as he is realized in the believer’s own 
moral growth ; he is not the personal, living God-man, 
the Author of the Christian’s salvation, the ground of 
his justification, the warrant of his eternal hope. Of 
such a Being Kant knows nothing, as he knows noth- 
ing of the Christian truth of the Trinity of Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit. Religion for him is morality 
enforced by the postulates of the practical reason, and 
illuminated by the ideals which reason furnishes and 
historical Christianity more or less fully illustrates.’ 
The theology of the late Albrecht Ritschl, now in 
such high repute in Germany, is in some important feat- 
ures a revival of Kant’s system.’ It differs also, how- 
ever, at essential points, and plainly shows the influence 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. DO 


of Schleiermacher and Lotze. Like Kant, Ritschl de- 
nies that metaphysics can be in any sense the source of 
religious knowledge. Ile repudiates natural theology 
altogether. We have no knowledge of the thing in 
itself. The idea of something behind sensation, which 
is its cause and source, of a substance underlying phe- 
nomena, is illusory. In truth, it is a trick of memory. 
We recall the various attributes of things known 
through past sensations, and unite them in the notion 
of a thing, which acquires a certain permanence in our 
thought. This notion we project into space and re- 
gard as the cause of the more fluent phenomena known 
immediately in sensation.” The so-called arguments 
for the divine existence carry us no farther than the 
world itself, and give us only the notion of the world 
with the abstraction of its attributes. The Absolute is 
thus merely a notion and cannot furnish the basis for 
religion.” 

ftitsch] also follows Kant in that when he finds no 
thoroughfare along the road of the theoretical reason, 
he turns in the direction of the practical side of man’s 
nature. It is through the will that the practical work 
of life is done. Man finds himself in the midst of 
_hature, which is under the control of necessity. But 
man is free. He is able to use nature and raise him- 
self above it. This he does by acting in view of ends. 
This is what makes him a moral being. But how shall 
he attain the ends that are immanent in his nature ? 
how shall he secure and maintain his supremacy over 
nature ? how shall he reach his moral goal? Kant 
solved the moral problem by the postulates of the 
practical reason. IRitschl solves it by the fact of rev- 
elation. Jesus Christ is the answer to the moral ques- 


276 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENOE. 


‘tion. Ilis person, life, and work are a revelation of 
God. Ile makes known to us God and the great truth 
and fact of the kingdom of God. God is love. The 
kingdom of God is the reign of love among men. This 
is the chief end of man, by pursuing which he is able 
to attain his moral destination. But it is more’ than 
this: it is the chief end of God’s activity as revealed 
by Christ, and the chief end of Christ’s own life. 

It was by the unity of Christ with God in the pur- 
pose of the kingdom that he maintained that solidarity 
with God in virtue of which the Scripture writers call 
him divine. His life was sinless. Throughout it he 
maintained perfect trust in God and superiority to the 
world, in spite of suffering and, at the last, of death. 
Both life and death were redemptive. In one sense 
we may regard him as a high-priest, the representative 
of men; God saw mankind in him. But inthe truest 
sense the atonement is a manifestation of the divine 
love. Christ reveals God ‘as love; in hitn we know 
God. Into the metaphysical basis of the Saviour’s 
manifestation we may not inquire. The essential di- 
vinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity find no 
place in the system. Miracles, likewise, are left unex- 
plained so far as their relation to natural law is con- 
cerned ; their value in the Christian system lies in the 
fact that they are remarkable manifestations of God’s 
providential care for believers. 

The divine grace imparts forgiveness upon the simple 
condition of faith, wholly apart from works. Upon 
this point Ritschl asserts the accepted Protestant doe- 
trine. When we accept in faith the teachings of 
Christ and enter into the community of Christians, the 
church, we receive the forgiveness of sins, and the 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. QT 


divine purpose, that is, the kingdom of God, becomes 
our chief end. Thus we are delivered from our false 
dependence upon the world and brought into our true 
relation of dependence upon God, whose providence 
we know to be on the side of those who are laboring 
for him. 

Ritschl does not teach the present work of Christ in 
the soul. Neither does he teach in any true sense a 
communion of the soul with God such as Christian ex- 
perience asserts. How Christ at present stands related 
to the church is not, according to this theory, a matter 
of importance. It is through his life, his historical 
manifestation, that he influences his followers to-day.” 
Ritschl says: ‘“ Apart from the medium of God’s Word 
and the exact recollection of this personal revelation of 
God in Christ, there is no personal relation between a 
Christian and God.” An interesting controversy has 
been carried on in late years in Germany upon this sub- 
ject, in which Herrmann, one of Ritschl’s most noted 
disciples, has taken a prominent part. It is clear from 
the work this theologian has written on the subject— 
“Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott” “—that the 
Christian’s certainty of an actual and present relation 
to God is regarded as based upon what Christ did and 
said when he was on earth, and not upon any present 
consciously recognized relation of the believer to God 
through Christ. '* . 

It is evident that this theory dispenses with all spec- 
ulative evidence for the truth of Christianity. Its 
proof is wholly practical.’ Because the Christian SyS- 
tem, as it comes to us in and through Christ, enables 
us to attain our true end as moral beings, we know it 
to be true, or, what is the same, we know it to be a 


278 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


revelation. The divine existence and all the Christian 
facts and truths, so far as this theology teaches them, 
are thus verified. 

I have stated this view at length on account of the 
great importance it las assumed in recent times. I 
pass now to consider the validity of the objection 
based upon it and the doctrine of Kant. We freely 
admit that the main contention of the objectors is 
true. We concede the important part played by met- 
aphysics in our evidence of Christian experience, but 
we deny that it is unwarranted. On the contrary, 
we claim that there can be no evidence of the truth 
of either religion or Christianity without the help 
which metaphysics affords. All knowledge, we insist, 
is one. God does not deprive us of the use of our 
reason when he brings us into the highest relation to 
himself. 

The attempt to exclude metaphysics is suicidal. It 
leaves religion without any support, a mere castle in 
the air. It is folly to think that the great facts which 
constitute religion can be proved in any other way. The 
earnestness with which the moral law is maintained in 
these systeins is certainly to be commended. But mo- 
rality is not religion, nor can it exist without the sane- 
tions of religion. 

Kant’s doctrine gives us religion only in name. The 
postulates of the practical reason are not knowledge. 
They give us no objective reality. They are ideas, not 
facts." But religion cannot consist in subjective ideas. 
It must have realities, and actual contact with those 
realities. When you cut away its theoretical basis, 
you destroy its root and it soon withers away. The 
meagre Christian element in the Kantian system fares 


THEOLOGICAL OBJEOTIONS.* 279 


no better. The ideal Son of God, as he has no per- 
sonal reality, has no redemptive power. 

Ritschl’s theology is on a higher level. Its asser- 
tion of the historical reality and essential importance 
of Christ as a revelation of God cannot be too highly 
commended. It finds a place for a large amount of 
the distinctively Christian truth. But at the bottom 
it labors under the same fatal difficulties as the Kant- 
ian theology. Again we have a castle in the air. A 
revelation cannot be known as such unless it is based 
on some kind of natural knowledge. The assertion 
that God cannot be known by reason and yet can be 
known by revelation is preposterous, as preposterous 
as it would be to assert the same of self, or the world, 
or our fellow-men. Moreover, the denial of metaphys- 
ies emasculates the Christian system, excluding from it 
all that is highest. The Christian Realities are made un- 
real and communion with them rendered impossible. 
After all, what is left is scarcely more than the old 
moral rationalism, with a historical rather than an ideal 
basis. 

The much-vaunted practical proof also fails. Such 
proof has a high value when it is connected with the 
theoretical evidence, but standing alone it carries no 
weight with it. It does not prove the objective reality 
of religion or Christianity. All that it can do is to 
show the regulative value in morals of certain ideals. 
It is just here that Ritschl is less consistent than 
Kant. The latter did not pretend to get beyond pos- 
tulates and ideals. But Ritschl attempts to find in the 
practical proof an objective religious basis, a proof not 
of the regulative value of ideas but of the actual truth 
of a revelation.” . 


280 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, 


The positive evidence for the validity of our position 
has been given already. I have shown the truth of 
natural theology, the confirmation given to it by Chris- 
tian experience, and the evidence of the reality of 
the higher Christian facts that experience affords. In 
all this we have made abundant use of metaphysics, 
and we insist that we have had the full right to do so. 

3. It is objected, once more, that our view mistak- 
enly assumes the correspondence of the symbolical rep- 
resentations of religion with the objective reality. As 
the last objection found fault with us for introducing 
too much philosophy into our evidence, this complains 
that we have too little. 

This is the pantheistic objection. Christianity is 
true, if is said, so far as it reveals to us eternal truths 
and facts of reason, but the forms under which the 
revelation is made are imperfect and not susceptible 
of the explanation the Christian gives of them. Ac- 
cording to the pantheistic view, the world in its his- 
tory is a continuous unfolding of the Absolute. The 
divine Spirit comes to consciousness in the human 
spirit; self-consciousness and God-consciousness are 
therefore identical. Religious experience is real, be- 
cause it is the result of the immediate impression of 
the divine Spirit upon the human spirit, as they meet 
in man’s consciousness. Let a man go down into the 
depths of his soul, and there he finds God. God is 
continually with him, conditioning him, affecting him, 
impelling him. IIe is a part of the divine process and 
the divine Idea is realized in and through him. 

Now in the progress of the world-process the Divine is 
more and more fully realized in the human, and more 
and more fully manifests itself in the human conscious- 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 281 


ness. Accordingly, history is the progressive revela- 
tion of God to men. This divine revelation comes into 
the sphere of consciousness in the form of mental rep- 
resentations or Vorstellungen,” which are imperfect 
symbols or media of the idea or reality. In the earlier 
stages of the development of religion these representa- 
tions are imperfect, rude, and inadequate. As with 
equal pace the development of man and the revelation 
of the Divine proceed, the representations become 
higher and more adequate. Christianity is the perfect 
or absolute religion; in it the truth of the Divine 
comes to its completion; it gathers into itself the 
fragmentary truth existing in the other religions, and 
supplements and completes it. It is the crowning of 
the divine revelation. But Christianity still makes use 
of symbolical representations, beyond and behind which 
the philosopher must pass, though he cannot wholly 
dispense with them. To this realm of representation, 
of figurate rather than literal truth, belong the distine- 
tively Christian realities. Especially Jesus the Christ, 
as known in Christian experience, belongs to the region 
of the representation rather than to that of the pure 
idea. 

Jesus, according to this view, was in a true sense 
the God-man. But all men are God-men; the Divine 
is incarnate in every man. Jesus stands to us as pre- 
eminently the example and symbol of the union be- 
tween God and men which is progressively realized in 
the world-process. Consequently we give to his per- 
son an especial significance in connection with our re- 
ligious experience. Inasmuch as the God-conscious- 
ness existed in a perfect form in him, and by it he 
was able to overcome the world and to rise above the 


282 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EHX PERIENCE. 


limits of the finite, we may be said to be redeemed by 
him, in the sense that we enter through him into the 
same God-consciousness.” 

This doctrine takes different forms, so far as the de- 
tails are concerned, in the theology of H egel,” and in 
our own times in the theologies of Biedermann™ and 
Pfleiderer.* They find a feebler echo in their English 
and American imitators. At the bottom these systems 
bear a close resemblance to each other. The Christian 
experience which they allow and endeavor to explain 
is altogether different from that which we claim as 
the true Christian experience. When we translate the 
terms-which have an orthodox sound and give them 
their simple meaning, the result is to strip the Chris- 
tian consciousness of all its distinctively Christian ele- 
ments. The God who manifests himself in the ex- 
perience of the Christian is an impersonal, unconscious 
God, moving blindly onward to hidden ends. 'The 
redemption which is effected is a deliverance from 
finiteness and ignorance rather than from sin. The 
new birth is aot an ushering of the soul into the de- 
pendence and humility of the life in Christ, but an 
entrance into the pride and self-sufficiency of a philo- 
sophical system. The trinitarian characteristics of the 
Christian consciousness—which the advocates of this 
theology strenuously assert—are ulusory. The’ pan- 
theistic triad is not the personal Trinity of Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit, but three phases or aspects of 
the Absolute in the blind world-process.* The God- 
man is not the personal Jesus the Christ, at once 
human and divine, but mankind as the finite realiza- 
tion of the Infinite, of which realization Jesus is taken 
only as the symbol or exemplar. The God-man of the 


THHOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 283 


Christian consciousness is, in truth, according to this 
view, the believer himself. Or rather, he is the real- 
ity, as yet imperfect, and Christ is the name under 
which the ideal is expressed ; so that we come close to 
the view of Kant, and the pantheist readily employs 
Kant’s terminology in describing the Christian life. 
But is this the true explanation of the Christian’s ex- 
perience? Are the mental forms under which we ap- 
prehend it mere symbolical representations, and is the 
reality what pantheism claims? Does the spiritual 
life of the Christian prove nothing more than the the- 
ory that has just been stated? The believer answers, 
No! We stands in the Christian experience and knows 
that it is not susceptible of such an explanation. Ie 
has the best of evidence that he does not mistake sym- 
bolical representations for facts. Ie knows that he is 
dealing not with notions but with realities. 
There is a plausibility about the pantheistic theology 
‘which gives it credence with many who do not wholly 
grasp its meaning. It seems to furnish a fine and 
noble explanation of Christian experience and to 
do justice to all its elements. So ingenious are the 
devices it uses, and so skilful its employment of 
Christian phraseology, that it is not altogether easy 
for the uninitiated to meet and answer it. But the 
Christian who has subjected his experience to the 
tests of reason, and found in it those riches of divine 
grace and wisdom which have been described in these 
lectures, will not for a moment accept the pantheis- 
tic construction of it. He does not find himself the 
theatre of a blind process in which he is only a factor 
in the evolution of the Infinite. Rather he finds in 
his soul the arena on which the living God does bat- 


284 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


tle with the powers of evil and rescues his priceless 
personality from destruction, When he comes to 
realize the poverty but scantly hidden by the high- 
sounding phrases and arrogant assumptions of the pan- 
theistic mode of thought, he is filled with repugnance 
at the utter futility of such an explanation of the high- 
est and holiest facts of his life. Ile is tempted to 
think that the advocates of this theory do not them- 
selves know what the true Christian experience is, so 
different, so much lower, so altogether of another spir- 
it, is the experience they describe. 

Now different a God who has no consciousness apart 
from man, to whom no prayer is possible, who works as 
blindly as the forces of nature, from the personal Father 
who forgives our sins and to whose mercy-seat we have 
constant access ; the living Christ, our ever-present Say- 
iour; and the Holy Spirit, whose presence and power 
are the source of our spiritual life! How different the 
pantheistic redemption from the Christian ‘deliverance 
from sin and Satan! How heaven-wide the difference 
between the life of the Infinite in us, which is merely 
a natural life carrying with it no guarantee of personal 
existence when the finite limits of the Infinite are 
broken, and that eternal life which consists in the per- 
sonal knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ 
whom he has sent, that is the pledge of unending 
blessedness ! 

We gladly admit the moral earnestness of many who 
hold this view. We can understand how, in their re- 
action from the bare rationalism that has to so great an 
extent prevailed, they have found help and comfort in 
this doctrine as something higher and nobler than they 
have known; how perhaps they have come to it in re- 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 285 


action from the rationalistic tendency too often pres- 
ent in the popular representations of Christian ortho- 
doxy. But without hesitation we declare that this is 
not the true explanation of the experience of the 
Christian, and that there is nothing here permanently 
to satisfy the cravings of the human soul that longs 
for redemption and peace with God. It is not a mat- 
ter of surprise to us that this doctrine never proves a 
permanent refuge for thoughtful men, but that they 
draw back from it into orthodoxy or go on into agnos- 
ticism and materialism. 

I cannot help thinking that we who are by profes- 
sion, and I trust by divine calling, teachers of men in 
spiritual things, ought to take higher ground against 
the insidious inroads of this pantheistic tendency of 
thought. It is dangerous just in proportion to the 
nobility of the guise in which it comes. But it is not 
of God, and cannot do otherwise than hinder the ad- 
vancement of the kingdom of God. I know we often 
hear it said by evangelical men that there is a panthe- 
istic element in Christianity. What is meant is that 
the doctrine of the divine immanence is a part of true 
Christian theology and ought to be maintained in op- 
position to the deistic tendency which would suppress 
it in the interest of the divine transcendence. But 
the element in Christianity thus designated is not 
pantheistic in any true sense of the term and ought 
not to be so called. It is toto calo different from the 
pantheism just described, which renders the divine im- 
manence and the divine transcendence alike unmean- 
ing.”° 

II. We come now to a very different class of objec- 
tions, proceeding not from the opponents but from the 


286 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


friends of orthodox Christianity. I am inclined to 
think, indeed, that at the root they spring from some 
of the same tendencies we have been dealing with in 
answering the unorthodox objections. But they are 
made in the interests of evangelical Christianity by 
men who are thoroughly at one with usin heart and 
life, and we should treat them with all respect. There 
is undoubtedly danger that in our desire to state the 
evidence of the Christian experience at its full worth 
we shall go too far, and lay a one-sided emphasis upon 
the subjective factors in Christianity. We are our- 
selves under the influence of the spirit of our age. 
About us are movements which in part control us, and 
of which we are only partially conscious. It may be 
that in our reaction from the deistic and pantheistic 
positions we lay ourselves open to objections similar 
to those we have urged against the philosophies and 
theologies we have been criticising. It will therefore 
be a wholesome and helpful exercise to examine the 
objections brought against us by our friends. There 
is always something good in the criticism of a friend. 
We can enter into it with a heartiness we cannot feel 
when we are dealing with those whom we have reason 
to believe radically wrong. 

1. It is objected that the use here made of the 
Christian experience carries us beyond the bounds of 
sober Christian faith and lands us in enthusiasm, if 
not in fanaticism. 

(1.) It is said that by following the line of argument 
which has guided us in these lectures we fall into 
mysticism. 

Now there is a false mysticism and a true, a Mysti- 
cosmus and a Mystik. The former we repudiate, To 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 287 


the latter we heartily confess our allegiance. The false 
mysticism attempts a union with God that is rather 
physical than ethical and spiritual. It has its raptures, 
its revelations, its absorption into the Godhead, its ex- 
travagances in belief and practice, sometimes even its 
fanaticism, such as was witnessed among the Anabap- 
tists at the time of the Reformation. One of the most 
suggestive modern writers upon the subject says: 
“The mystic, as such, was not to know anything about 
the Infinite, he was to ‘gaze with closed eyes,’ pas- 
sively to receive impressions, lost in the silent, bound- 
less ‘Dark’ of the Divine Subsistence. . . . Phi- 
Josophers and monks alike employ the word mysticism 
and its cognate terms as involving the idea, not merely 
of initiation into something hidden, but, beyond this, 
of an internal manifestation of the Divine to the intui- 
tion or in the feeling of the secluded soul. . . Mys- 
ticism presents itself in all its phases as more or less the 
religion of internal as opposed to external revelation— 
of heated feeling, sickly sentiment, or lawless imagina- 
tion, as opposed to that reasonable belief in which the 
intellect and the heart, the inward witness and the out- 
ward, are alike engaged.” * Charles Kingsley, in the 
Saint’s Tragedy, has thus described the consciousness 
of the mystic: 


‘‘ What bliss, 
When, dying in the darkness of God’s light, 
The soul can pierce these blinding webs of nature, 
And float up to the nothing, which is all things, 
The ground of being, where self-forgetful silence 
Is emptiness—emptiness, fulness—fulness, God, 
Till we touch Him, and like a snow-flake, melt 
Upon his light-sphere’s keen circumference ! ” 27 


288 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Dr. Hodge the Elder says that mysticism “is the 
theory, variously modified, that the knowledge, purity, 
and blessedness to be derived from communion with 
God, are not to be attained from the Scriptures and 
the use of the ordinary means of grace, but by a super- 
natural and immediate divine influence, which influ- 
ence (or communication of God to the soul) is to be 
secured by passivity, a simple yielding the soul with- 
out thought or effort to the divine influx.” *° 

I have been thus careful in the statement of what 
the false mysticism is, that I may clearly distinguish it 
from the true, to which, as has been said, we gladly 
confess our adherence. The true mysticism has been 
the salvation of the Christian church in all ages of its 
history, when formalism in worship and rationalism in 
religion have turned Christians away from vital Chris- 
tianity. This mysticism has been nothing more than 
the view here presented, namely, that the believer has 
a personal spiritual experience of God and the Chris- 
tian Realities. Sometimes, it is true, the mystics— 
using the term in the sense here designated—have 
gone too far into the opposite extreme in their reac- 
tion from barren formalism. But there has been 
something noble even in their extravagances. The 
great majority, however, of the class of whom I have 
been speaking, have been sober-minded men who haye 
laid claim to nothing higher than the New-Testament 
ascribes to every Christian. Among the mystics of 
this stamp have been Augustin, Anselm, Bernard, 
Wyklif, Iuss, Luther, Calvin, Bunyan, Whitefield, 
and the Wesleys. Pre-eminently to this class be- 
longed our own great theologian, Jonathan Edwards. 
In every age, when the life of the church grows weak 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 289 


and its inner fires die down, such mysticism is needed. 
Christians must be made to realize that their hidden 
life of faith and communion with God is their true 
life. They must be turned away from barren forms 
and doctrines to the living Father, the ever-present 
Christ, the Holy Spirit energizing in their souls. 

But this true Christian mysticism has nothing in 
common with the false. It aims at nothing more than 
the possession and use of that communion with God 
which is essential to all genuine Christian life. It lays 
no claim to any other union with God than that which 
is spiritual and personal. It is far from asserting any 
immediate intuition of God.” It does not satisfy it- 
self with contemplation and communion, but is turned 
outward also to the practical life of the Christian in 
the kingdom of God. Its faith is one which must 
manifest itself in love to our fellow-men as well as in 
love to God. It makes no pretence of receiving di- 
vine revelations. It does not base itself upon vague 
feelings, but upon the power of Christ manifest in the 
whole man, will, intellect, and feeling, and tested in 
its truth by reflective thought operating in the light of 
the rational intuitions. Itis a sober and rational faith, 
knowing whereof it affirms, and ready to give a reason 
for itself to all men in all meekness and humility. 

If the Christian experience, as it has been described, 
is a reality, there is no reason why it should not be 
made an evidence, and the highest evidence, of the 
truth of Christianity. To treat it thus is only to fol- 
low the dictate of a reason which has subjected itself 
to the will of Christ. It is not only foolish but wrong 
to turn from the highest evidence, that which alone 
can fully satisfy our desire for truth, and for the veri- 

19 


s 


290 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


fication of that truth, and to content ourselves with 
proofs which from the nature of the case can never 
give us more than a higher or lower degree of proba- 
bility. All that we ask for the basis of this proof is 
what every believer is willing enough to concede when 
he gives account of his own Christian life. “ As all 
evangelical Christians admit a supernatural influence 
of the Spirit of God upon the soul, and recognize a 
higher form of knowledge, holiness, and fellowship 
with God as the effects of that influence, they are stig- 
matized as mystics by those who discard everything 
supernatural from Christianity.” Thus writes Dr. 
Charles Hodge, meaning by the mysticism of which 
he declares that Christians are falsely accused, that 
which we have called the false mysticism. Again he 
says: “God, therefore, does hold immediate inter- 
course with the souls of men. He reveals himself unto 
his people, as he does not unto the world. He gives 
them the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him- 
self (Eph. i. 17). Ile unfolds to them his glory, and 
fills them with a joy which passes understanding.” * 
This is just what we ask to have conceded as the 
foundation of our evidence—this, and nothing more. 


‘And all that we ask for the proof itself is that the 


facts granted by all Christians should be taken at their 
full value. No Christian but believes in faith, prayer, 
and communion with the Father through the Christ 
in the power of the Holy Spirit. None but believes 
in the change of heart, the progress in holiness, the 
capacitation for service in the kingdom of God, the 
commencement here of the life everlasting. But if 
we believe in them, let us take them at their full apol- 
ogetical worth. Let us not talk of mysticism when 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 291 


Christians treat these facts and truths as if they were 
realities. Would God there were more such mysticism 
in the Christian church ! 

There is a latent rationalism lurking in the minds 
of Christians which makes them timid about confess- 
ing the reality of their faith as a living faith that lays 
hold upon the divine realities, and leads them in pref- 
erence to talk and act as if it were a mere intellec- 
tual faith. Thus they come into the greatest embar- 
rassment when the truth of Christianity is called in 
question, and allow the unbeliever an easy victory over 
them. <A little more Christian ratconality is needed 
in place of this unchristian ratconalésm. This it is 
that has laid the church under the reproach of mak- 
ing sceptics by its apologetical methods. Let us once 
make unbelievers understand that our Christian ex- > 
perience carries its evidence in it, and we shall find 
them dealing far more respectfully with our beliefs 
than at present. A real conviction—that is, one that 
rests on reality—has a mighty power. Men cannot 
trifle with it. A conviction like that of the Christian, 
based upon evidence which satisfies the reason as well 
as the heart, is able to win the world to its side. It is 
time we should stop giving the opponent of Chiris- 
tianity who calls upon us for a proof of our belief 
every reason but the right one. Let us purge out the 
leaven of the old rationalism. 

(2.) The same objection recurs in a different form 
when it is said that our evidence is a revival of the 
(Juaker doctrine of the “inward light.” If this were 
the case, I should not shrink from admitting it. We 
have much to learn from the Quakers. JI can think of 
no more salutary task for a student of divinity in this 


292 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


sense-bound age, when the intellect and the heart are 
alike starved with the dry scholastic systems with 
which we theologians furnish them, than to turn to 
Barclay’s Apology and with devout study to master 
the teachings of the first six ‘‘ Propositions.” 

But our doctrine is not that of the Quakers. We 
avoid their one-sidedness and errors. We do indeed 
hold toa doctrine of the inner light. We could not 
be Christians at all without acknowledging that the 
believer’s experience involves a divine illumination. 
The Holy Spirit in the soul touches the intellect with 
a new radiance and makes known a wholly new range 
of truth. So far as this is the case, we have a right 
to use this new truth as the basis of Christian evidence. 
God meant that we should do so, and it would be folly 
to ignore it. But this does not imply the acceptance 
of the Quaker doctrine. According to this doctrine, 
there is a direct communication of the truth to the 
soul, a supernatural revelation, which enables him who 
possesses it to dispense with all outward helps. Quaker 
theology recognizes no difference between the action of 
the Holy Spirit in and upon the souls of the apostles and 
holy men of old and his action in and upon the souls of 
Christians to-day. Barclay says that “‘ where the true 
inward knowledge of God is, through the revelation of 
his Spirit, there is all; neither is there an absolute ne- 
cessity of any other.”® 

The Scripture, according to this scheme, holds a sub- 
ordinate place. Barclay says once more, speaking of 
the Scriptures, ‘‘ Because they are only a declaration 
of the fountain, and not the fountain itself, therefore 
they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of 
all truth and knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 293 


rule of faith and manners. Yet, because they give a 
true and faithful testimony of the first foundation, 
they are and may be esteemed a secondary rule, subor- 
dinate to the Spirit, from which they have all their 
excellency and certainty.”% To this we cannot as- 
sent.” We not only lay no claim to an illumination 
like the supernatural inspiration of the apostles and to 
the receiving of revelations such as were vouchsafed 
to them, but we also place the Scriptures above the 
illumination of the Spirit as a source of Christian 
truth. Though the light is perfect in itself, our ap- 
prehension of it is imperfect, and we need for our 
guidance the infallible objective revelation. Our inner 
light is only the common light of the Spirit’s presence 
which shines in the soul of the Christian. In this 
light it is possible for the Christian to be assured of 
the reality of Christianity and to learn much of God 
and his will. But although it is a first-hand source of 
knowledge, it is not an independent source of knowl- 
edge. 

I can find no better statement of our position than 
that of the elder Dr. Hodge: ‘“ There is no form of con- 
viction more intimate and irresistible than that which 
arises from the inward teaching of the Spirit. All 
saving faith rests on his testimony or demonstrations 
(1 Cor. ii. 4). . . . This inward teaching produces 
a conviction which no sophistries can obscure, and no 
arguments can shake. It is founded on consciousness, 
and you might as well argue a man out of belief in his 
existence, as out of confidence that what he is thus 
taught of God is true. Two things, however, are to 
be borne in mind. First, that this inward teaching 
or demonstration of the Spirit is confined to truths 


294 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTI AN HXPEHRIENCE. 


objectively revealed in the Scriptures. . . . And 
second, This experience is depicted in the Word of 
God. The Bible gives us not only the facts concern- 
ing God and Christ, ourselves and our relations to our 
Maker and Redeemer, but also records the legitimate 
effects of those truths on the minds of believers.” ® 

(3.) A third form of the objection represents us as 
giving an undue prominence to the Christian con- 
sciousness. Schleiermacher, it is said, introduced the 
doctrine of the Christian consciousness into theology, 
and made it the source of a system of doctrine which 
was wholly divorced from the Scripture on the one side, 
and reason on the other, and which was wholly unor- 
thodox in its main features—a system which reject- 
ed miracles, questioned the personality of God, made 
Christ nothing more than a man, denied the freedom 
of the will—in a word, was from beginning to end 
pantheistic. Now, it is said, the evidence of Christian 
experience is only a revival of this heterodox system 
in a new form. 

In answering this form of the objection I wish to 
say a word in the first place about Schleiermacher. It 
is needless in this place, where the name of Henry B. 
Smith is revered, to defend the work which Schleier- 
macher accomplished as a theologian. Our honored 
teacher did that more than forty years ago in generous 
language that still glows with all its original fire.” The 
German philosopher and theologian was an epoch-mak- 
ing man, and is to be judged by the age in which he 
lived and the circumstances in which his work was 
done. Tis theology was undoubtedly defective. His 
philosophical training had been pantheistic, and his 
rationalistic associations led him to undervalue the 


THHOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 295 


supernatural element in Christianity. But two things 
Schleiermacher did, for which Christianity will always 
bear him gratitude. In the first place, he turned the 
tide of German rationalism back to Christianity by 
vindicating the independent worth of Christian ex- 
perience, showing the unbelieving thinkers of his age 
that in the personal relations of the Christian to God 
through Christ there is a sphere of reality which has 
a right to the same scientific treatment as the other 
spheres of human existence and activity. In the see- -' 
ond place, he put into the centre of the theological 
system the person and redemptive work of the Sav- 
iour.”’ 

These are the great and never-to-be-forgotten ser- 
vices which give his name a unique place among those 
of modern theologians. Out of his defective and 
pantheistic theology there grew an orthodox theology 
which was able to wage victorious battle with ration- 
alism on the one side, and pantheism on the other, 
and which to-day embraces all that is vital and evan- 
gelical in German Christian thought. Moreover, while 
his influence upon the theological thinking of Great 
Britain and America has not been so direct, yet the 
later evangelical theology of these countries owes some 
of its best features to the teachings of Schleiermacher 
and his German successors.* 

Now Schleiermacher did not invent the Christian 
consciousness, however good may be the reason for as- 
sociating the term with his name. He merely called 
renewed attention to its existence and importance. It 
is true that his pantheistic mode of thought led to an 
abuse of the term, of which other pantheists availed 
themselves. According to the pantheistic view, as we 


296 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 


have seen, God comes to consciousness in man, and 
so the divine and the human consciousness are identi. 
cal. Thus divine revelation and human thought when 
engaged with divine things are Synonymous. It is 
also true that Schleiermacher regarded the Christian 
consciousness as an independent source of theology, 
and made it the task of systematic theology to reduce 
the contents of this consciousness to order and unity, 
without reference to the Scriptures or to philosophy, 
with the result of producing a subjective theology, 
based upon pious feeling, and in many respects arbi- 
trary and defective. 

But while these things are so, the fact remains that 
Schleiermacher’s great work consisted in giving back 
to the Christian consciousness the place it had lost in 
theology, the place which al ways belonged to it. The 
Christian consciousness—that is, Christian experience, 
for the two are at the bottom not different—was re- 
stored to its rights. 

But while we, in common with all theologians of 
modern times, are profoundly indebted to Schleier- 
macher, we are not responsible for his errors, nor for 
the prejudices which have clustered so thickly about 
his name. In presenting the evidence which is the 
subject of these lectures we simply claim that the ex- 
perience of the believer is a reality, and that in its 
reality the Christian must find the highest proof of 
the truth of Christianity. We repudiate all pantheis- 
tic implications, and when we speak of the Christian 
consciousness, we mean what every sober evangelical 
Christian means when he gives his testimony to the 
reality of the divine life that is at work within him. 
_ Our evidence is simply Paul’s “demonstration of the 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 297 


Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. ii. 4), with the excep- 
tion that the miraculous element so prominent in the 
days of the apostles is absent. We give no undue 
prominence to the Christian experience. Undoubtedly 
a very high place belongs to it in scientific apologetics, 
a place which hitherto has not generally been conceded 
to it. But, as I hope to show a little later, we do not 
in any sense undervalue the other evidences, but only 
try to set them in their true relation to this inner and 
central evidence, which we believe to be the true key- 
stone of the apologetical arch. 

Attention should also be called to the fact that the 
prejudice aroused by recent discussions respecting the 
Christian consciousness does not really touch the sub- 
ject upon which we are engaged. Some eminent mod- 
ern disciples of Schleiermacher—disciples in following 
his evangelical spirit and methods, not in copying his 
theological and philosophical errors—have given an im- 
portant place to the Christian consciousness, alongside 
of the Scriptures, as a source of theology, and have 
fallen under the reproach, unjustly, it seems to me, of 
having placed it in a position of superiority to the 
Scriptures. The most noted example is the great Ger- 
man theologian Dorner, who, however, does not by 
any means stand alone among his countrymen in this 
respect, nor go so far as many. 

Now undoubtedly Christian experience is one of the 
legitimate sources of theology. The fact that two 
such men as Charles Hodge * and Henry B. Smith * 
give it a place among the sources is a sufficient vouch- 
er for its right of existence. There is a first-hand 
knowledge of Christian truth with which theology can- 
not dispense, though it needs to be corrected by the 


298 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


infallible teachings of revelation, since it is the first- 
hand knowledge of a sinful and imperfect man. The 
fact that Dorner uses the term Christian consciousness, 
instead of Christian experience, is indifferent to all ex- 
cept a few rather ignorant and very over-timid theo- 
logians. 

But our presentation of the evidence of Christian 
experience aims at an entirely different end from the 
theological method which looks to the Christian con- 
sciousness for a larger or smaller portion of the ma- 
terial of theology. We have been concerned solely 
with the question, What evidence has Christian ex- 
perience to furnish us touching the truth of Christian- 
ity ¢ It has been only incidentally that we have tried 
to state the contents of the Christian experience, and 
we have had no thought of weaving the material thus 
gathered into a system of theology without the help of 
the Scriptures and philosophy. Indeed, I do not be- 
lieve it would be possible to construct a theology in 
this way. Thus, for example, while the fact of the 
Trinity has met us in its practical form at every step in 
our investigation of the Christian experience, I do not 
believe that from the fact alone, as thus revealed, we 
could possibly formulate a satisfactory and self-consist- 
ent statement of this great truth. Our work is a to- 
tally different one, namely, not to formulate and sys- 
temize religious truth but to prove religious fact. It 
ought not, therefore, to be assailed by the same objec- 
tions, as if it were the same thing. 

(4.) The final form of the objection has been abun- 
dantly answered. It is that we undervalue the Seript- 
ures. 

On the contrary, we know of no Christian experi- 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 299 


ence of which the Scriptures have not been—through 
the influence of the Holy Spirit—the source and rule. 
In this sense we place the Scriptures distinctly above 
our experience. It is only through them that we are 
able to attain it, and understand it. But we do claim 
that when the experience is thus attained, and when 
we have found it to conform with the teachings of the 
Word, it has a value as a first-hand source of knowl- 
edge than which there is no higher.” 

2. It is objected that our evidence of Christian ex- 
perience makes everything turn upon the subjective 
states of the believer, and so opens the way for that 
morbid self-cousciousness and inward self-serutinizing 
which are opposed to all wholesome Christian life. 
We are to look, it is said, not to ourselves but to God 
and Christ. Our religion is to be objective, not merely 
subjective. ‘The whole proof, as it has been presented 
here, is rooted in the Christian’s regeneration and 
sanctification.” 

I am not blind to the force of this objection. I have 
felt it strongly myself in all my thought and study 
upon the subject before us. But my mature judgment 
is that it is not well-founded. With the human mind 
constituted as it is, there is no possible way for us 
to assure ourselves of the reality of the objective ex- 
cept through the examination of the subjective. All 
knowledge is necessarily relative to our faculties and 
mental states. We have no immediate intuition of the 
thing in itself. The most we claim is that we know that 
it is and what it is. My certainty of the existence of 
any material objects, such as my desk or paper, is me- 
diated by the effects of those objects in consciousness. 
If I will convince myself that they are not illusions, I 


300 HVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


must look to the modifications of my consciousness. 
I cannot go out of myself and cognize the objects in 
their bare reality. 

The same is true of our Christian knowledge. We 
cannot attain to any naked intuition of the Divine— 
the Spirit, the Christ, and the Father. To try to reach 
such an intuition, and to believe it reached, have been 
in all ages the marks of mysticism and fanaticism. 
To such an intuition we lay no claim.** If we call our 
knowledge immediate, it is not in the sense of being 
unmediated. It is through the effects of the sacred 
Three upon our consciousness that we know their pres- 
ence. It is the new heart, the new life, that is the 
evidence that God is the Author of our redemption. 

But the examination of our inward life for the 
proofs of a divine working—or for the evidences of 
our Christian state—is not unwholesome, provided the 
process be properly conducted. The danger begins 
when we are tempted to dwell upon these states with- 
out passing beyond them to their divine Causes. 

We are not distinctly conscious of the steps involved 
in our ordinary knowledge. I see a book directly, and 
all my thought and action go upon the assumption 
that my knowledge is direct. This is as it should be. 
It would not be wise under ordinary circumstances to 
stop and examine tle eye, the nerve, the brain, the 
sensation, the perception, and the reasoning involved in 
the perception. Nevertheless, all these steps, and more, 
must be passed through. And there are times when 
for scientific reasons, or even for practical reasons, it is 
well to test the knowledge at every point, and especially 
to scrutinize its subjective elements. 

In like manner the normal Christian knowledge 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 301 


passes directly to its divine objects—the Holy Spirit, 
the Christ, the Father. The believer does not bring 
distinctly before his consciousness the steps involved. 
He feels the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ dwells 
in his heart by faith, he has immediate access to the 
Father. All this is right and wholesome. Yet it is 
equally right, when the interests of Christian science 
require—or when the practical question of the Chris- 
tian’s being in a state of grace is to be tested—to ex- 
amine the elements of this knowledge, and especially 
to investigate its foundation in consciousness. 

There are two ways in which we can treat our 
Christian consciousness. One is as a mirror to reflect 
ourselves for the fostering of our pride and self-com- 
placency. The other is as a glass through which we 
may gain a certain sight and knowledge of the divine 
Authors of our salvation. The first way we utterly 
repudiate ; the second we claim to be legitimate and 
necessary. 

3. But it is objected that our evidence implies the 
universal existence among Christians of such an ex- 
perience as that which has been described, whereas, as 
a matter of fact, it is not the possession of all. Chris- 
tian assurance, it is said, does not belong to the essence 
of the Christian state; yet without Christian assurance 
our proof is of no avail. 

In reply, I admit that there are degrees of experience, 
and that all do not have the same fulness of knowledge 
of the Christian realities which gives our evidence its 
convincing power. I also admit that many Christians 
temporarily lose their faith and doubt the reality of 
their experience. But I claim that these exceptions do 
not invalidate the rule. The normal Christian experi- 


3802 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


ence is one which involves the elements described and 
which carries the evidence with it. Christian assurance, 
in the sense of an undoubting certainty of salvation, 
is a privilege all may enjoy if they will, but I doubt 
whether it is necessary in order to the evidence we are 
describing. Even a small degree of experience may be 
accompanied by proof, and a man may have the proof 
who does not have the certainty of personal salvation 
based upon the proof.*® 

4, A more serious objection is that our evidence is 
in some important respects different from the “ inter- 
nal testimony of the Spirit,” which Protestants have 
always taught, and which—so the objectors claim—is 
the only admissible experimental proof.” 

In reply, I cheerfully admit that the evidence before 
us 1s not the same as the traditional testimonium Spi- 
ritus Sancti internum. But I regard it as one of its 
chief recommendations that it supplements the defi- 
ciencies of that very important and valuable doctrine. 
It differs from it only in being broader and deeper, in 
being the whole of which that is the part. That doctrine 
was first advanced as an answer to the objections of the 
Roman Catholies, who declared that the rejection of 
the authority of the church by the Protestants left 
them without evidence of the divinity and truth of the 
Scriptures. In reply to these objections the Protestant 
appealed to his inward certainty of the truth of the 
Scripture doctrine, a certainty which he claimed was 
wrought by the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit. 
But this was rather the assertion of the existence of 
evidence than an exhibition of the grounds of evidence, 
There was a further question to be asked, namely, 
How do we know that this inward persuasion is actually 


THHOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 308 


wrought by the Holy Spirit ? and this is simply another 
form of the question, How do we know that Christian- 
ity is a system of divine powers and realities operating 
in the souls of men to-day ?” 

Our evidence of Christian experience gives the answer 
to this question, following the lead not of the early 
Protestants, but of the Puritan theologians, such as 
Baxter and his successors. We show that the new life 
of the believer, involving as it does a transformation 
of the whole man—intellect, sensibility, and will—is the 
proof of the presence of the Spirit, and through the 
Spirit, of the Christ and the Father. Out of this evi- 
dence of the reality of the divine Agencies at work in 
the Christian grows his evidence of the divinity and 
truth of the Scripture, or of the system of doctrine con- 
tained in the Scripture. It is because the believer has 
experienced the facts, that he is persuaded of the truth 
of the sacred Book that describes the facts. His intel- 
lect, iJuminated by the Holy Spirit, has apprehended 
the Christian realities, and thus has confirmed the teach-. 
ings of the Gospel. 

I assert, therefore, that while our evidence is not the 
same as the internal witness of the Spirit, it furnishes 
the true foundation for that doctrine, and finds a place 
for it in subordination to itself.” 

I know that there are those who are still so far in- 
fluenced by the rationalistic tendency from the first 
inherent in Protestantism that they find fault with us 
for making facts rather than doctrine the immediate 
object of our proof. They deny that Christian experi- 
ence involves a knowledge through contact of the di- 
vine [ealities, and claim that it only gives us a persua- 
sion of Christian truth. My answer to them is to be 


304 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI HNCE. 


found in the whole course of our argument. I truly 
believe that we have actual proof of such knowledge 
by contact. Moreover, to my mind their position is 
a much more difficult one than that taken here. It is 
hard to see how the human mind, constituted as it is, 
can come to an assured certainty of the truth of doctrine 
apart from a personal experimental knowledge of the 
facts upon which the doctrine rests. That the Holy 
Spirit should produce such a certainty by a mere act 
of power, seems to me not in accordance with his or- 
dinary working, which, while distinctly supernatural, 
always conforms to the laws of the human mind," 

5. Again it is urged, still by the friends of orthodox 
Christianity, that the evidence of Christian experience 
is not in the true and accepted sense of the term an 
evidence of Christianity. The evidences, it is sald, are 
the external proofs, either historical or rational, that is, 
derived either from human testimony or from the tes- 
timony of reason. By such proofs we vindicate the 
historical character of Christ’s person and mission, and 
of the revelation he gave to the world, and show that 
the revelation itself is intrinsically reasonable and in 
accordance with the divine character as known through 
nature. The object of the evidences is to confirm our 
Christian experience, which is not a proof in itself but 
rather the thing to be proved; and it is proved when 
the objective revelation to which it owes its origin is 
shown to be historically and rationally credible.” 

This objection, so far as it relates to those who are 
not Christians, was answered in the last lecture.” But 
if it can be shown—as I think we succeeded in doing— 
that the testimony of the Christian to the reality of 
his experience may be regarded as in some respects the 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 305 


strongest of the external evidences, certainly the expe- 
rience itself ought to be regarded as an evidence, and 
that of the highest validity, for the believer himself. 

It must, however, be confessed, that this objection 
has the prevalent apologetics upon its side. The evi- 
dences of Christianity commonly presented are the ex- 
ternal. Even the so-called internal evidence is not de- 
rived from Christian experience, but either from the 
intrinsic worth of the Christian system, or from its 
correspondence with the character of God as known 
through the natural revelation. 

Nevertheless, in spite of the tendency to confine the 
evidence to these external proofs, I cannot think that 
the objection is well taken. It is derived from that 
imperfect conception of Christianity which ignores the 
system of divine redemptive agencies, resting on’ the 
great Christian realities, by which Christianity is made 
a present power in the world. This aspect of Christi- 
anity is above all important; for while the other ele- 
ments are the condition of this element, they derive 
their whole significance from it. What difference does 
it make to me whether Christianity is a self-consistent 
system of doctrine, or whether Jesus Christ lived, and 
performed miracles, and taught the people, and died, and 
rose again eighteen centuries and a half ago, unless 
Jesus Christ is present here and now in the world and 
in my heart, bringing the sinner to the Father through 


the Spirit? If my proof ceases just where the real - - 


significance of Christianity begins, it is a sadly defec- 
tive proof and stands in crying need of being supple- 
mented. 
Moreover, the objection implies that Christian expe- 
rience carries with it no scientific proof. It is an expe- 
20 


3806 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


rience which, for aught we know, might be delusive, 
if it were not sustained by the outward evidences. <Ac- 
cordingly, the simple, unlearned Christian, who has no 
knowledge of books and no special training of intellect 
to understand them, must go to scholars for the evi- 
dence that his faith is not founded upon the sands of a 
subjective imagination. In like manner the Christian 
of larger intellectual culture must meet the unbeliever 
on the field outside of his fortifications, and not use 
the citadel at all in hisdefence. But such a view is in- 
trinsically absurd. Without meaning to do so, the ob- 
jector to all intents and purposes concedes to the scep- 
tic just what he is so vigorously trying to prove—the 
indefensibility of the Christian faith. He implies that 
it rests upon no present reality, that it involves no real 
contact with God and Christ through the Holy Spirit, 
and that the new birth and the new life have no recog- 
nizable supernatural basis. 

According to this view, the Christian. certainty is 
inerely a logical inference from historical facts and ra- 
tional conclusions. Because I am convinced upon suffi- 
cient probable evidence that Jesus Christ gave to men 
a divine revelation and wrought out a divine redemp- 
tive work nearly nineteen hundred years ago; and be- 
cause the system of doctrinal truth connected with this 
revelation is consonant with the divine character and 
intrinsically reasonable; and furthermore, because I 
have conformed to the conditions upon which grace and 
redemption are offered to sinners—therefore, I have a 
right to call myself a Christian, and this inference from 
the evidences is true and rational. Nevertheless, when 
I pray to God through Christ for the grace of the Holy 
Spirit, I have no direct and immediate evidence of my 


THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 307 


contact with the Father or with Christ, and no evidence 
that my prayer is answered by the gift of the Spirit’s 
help. Ido not say that the objectors reason in this 
way, but I do say that only such argument is consistent 
with the position which they take upon the subject. 

Let me press the facts home by a hypothetical case. 
Suppose a heathen should surprise you one day at 
prayer. He asks you to whom you are praying. You 
answer, to God through Christ the Mediator. He 
asks you again, what reason you have to believe that 
there is any Christ, and that he hears your prayers. 
You reply that nearly nineteen centuries ago such a be- 
ing lived in Palestine and showed himself by miracles 
to be divine, and taught a doctrine consonant with the 
highest human reason. ‘ But,” rejoins the heathen, 
“have you no evidence that he hears you now?” 
“Why, yes,” you reply, “that evidence of nearly nine- 
teen centuries ago. If that is valid, 1 am sure that he 
hears me.” ‘ And otherwise not?” asks your heathen 
wistfully, and leaves you disappointed. 

Now, if we are going to be consistent, either the one 
position or the other must be accepted. Hither we 
must admit that the Christian has no experience of the 
Christian realities which deserves the name, but is de- 
pendent upon the historical evidence of a revelation 
made nearly two millenniums ago, and the rational evi- 
dence of the intrinsic reasonableness of that revela- 
tion as it comes to us to-day in the form of a doctrinal 
system made known to us through the Bible and the 
testimony of the Church. Or, we must admit that 
Christian experience is self-evidencing, like all other 
first-hand knowledge, and that in it the Christian 
comes into actual contact with the redemptive reali- 


3808 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


ties, and has through personal acquaintance that knowl- 
edge of the only true God and Jesus Christ his Son 
which is eternal life. The issue isa plain one. We 
may accept which alternative we prefer, but one or the 
other we must accept. 

Now I[ claim that the Christian, when the issue is 
fairly made up, has but one choice; he must admit 
the reality and self-evidencing power of Christian ex- 
perience; he cannot face the facts of his own con- 
sciousness unless he does so. But if he accepts this 
horn of the dilemma, he must admit that the highest 
evidence is that which is derived from Christian ex- 
perience, and that it is evidence in the truest sense. 
For what is evidence? A distinguished modern philo- 
sophical authority defines it as “the ground or reason 
of knowledge, the light by which the mind apprehends 
things, whether immediately or mediately.” * ~ Cer- 
tainly the experience of the Christian finds the ground 
or reason of its knowledge in itself; the Christian con- 
sciousness furnishes the light by which the mind ap- 
prehends Christianity. There is no such evidence as 
that of actual contact with reality, and that there is 
such a contact in the Christian consciousness, as truly 
as in the consciousness of the world, has already been 
shown. The sensations which come to us from mate- 
rial objects are not the only contents of consciousness. 
These spiritual realities vindicate their right of exist- 
ence upon grounds as rational as those upon which the 
truth of our knowledge of the outward world rests. 
If I were asked to prove the existence of Manhattan 
Island, I should not despise the evidence I might gain 
from reliable histories, or from the intrinsic reason- 
ableness of the belief that such an island must exist at 


THHOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. 309 


such a place. But first and foremost would come the 
evidence of my present experience of it, the fact that 
in years past and now my eyes have seen it and my 
feet have trodden its surface. It would be absurd to 
deny the name of evidence to what is the highest 
and most convincing proof of all. Nor would the 
value of the evidence be impaired by the fact that 
some incredulous New Zealander might doubt whether 
such an island exists and call my testimony in question. 
There is no more reason why such an absurdity should 
find a place in our apologetics than in our practical 
life. Let me repeat what I said before: we Chris- 
tians will do well to have the courage of our con- 
victions. 

In conclusion, let me say that while the survey of 
the objections we have made is doubtless in some 
points incomplete, I think it has been sufficient to 
show that we have a ready and rational answer to 
give to the arguments urged against our position. 
Like Peter, the Christian of to-day declares that he 
does not follow cunningly devised fables, when he 
makes known the power and presence of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, but is an eye-witness of his majesty | 
(2 Pet. i. 16). We are not afraid to meet the objec- 
tions brought against us by the opponents of evangel- 
ical Christianity or by our own friends, whom we verily 
believe to be at one with usin their inmost convic- 
tions, though at first our method seems to them novel 
and of doubtful value. 


LECTURE IX. 
RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 


Ir remains for us to examine the position occupied 
by the evidence of Christian experience in the system 
of the Christian evidences. All proof of real existence 
is organic. The several arguments by which the real- 
ity of a thing is proved are not so many isolated lines 
of verification, but integral parts of a whole, elements 
of a single proof, all together necessary for the full 
vindication to the reason of the fact or truth in ques- 
tion. There is, in fact, but one evidence, which thought 
decomposes into its elements, as the prism does the 
white ray of light. This evidence is an organism in 
the true sense of the term. The parts stand in rela- 
tions of mutual dependence, they all contribute to a 
common end, and they have their different functions, 
the value of which is to be estimated in the light of 
their respective contributions to that end. 

I wish here, in a way that thus far has not been pos- 
sible, to emphasize the importance of the whole system 
of Christian evidences. I once asked a German mu- 
sician of some local prominence which he regarded as 
the most important instrument of music. His answer, 
given after a moment’s hesitation, was—the orchestra. 
No one instrument is worthy to be placed in the high- 
est category, but all together. This is the true idea 
of the organism of Christian proofs. We want, not 


a 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 311 


séparate instruments, but the whole orchestra. Bax- 
ter truly says: “‘God’s evidences must not be sepa- 
rated, much less must one be pleaded to the neglect of 
the rest.” * 

Nevertheless, while this is the case, I think there can 
be no question that there is an order of relative impor- 
tance in the evidences, and also of relative indepen- 
dence. The musician of whom I spoke a moment ago 
might without inconsistency have designated some 
instruments in the orchestra as of more importance 
than the rest. There are many members in the one 
body, but all the members have not the same office. 
Some of the parts of an organism are more essential 
to the attainment of the common end than are others. 
A scale of importance is thus established. Though all 
the members of the body are necessary, yet the head 
is, relatively to the life and well-being of the whole, of 
more importance than the feet. Moreover, the head 
has relatively more independence than the feet. We 
ean think of the body as existing, thongh in a muti- 
lated and maimed condition, without the feet. But 
we cannot think of it as existing at all without the 
head. The latter is essential in a sense in which the 
former are not. 

Thus judged, it seems to me that the place of su- 
preme importance among the evidences of Christianity 
must be conceded to the evidence of Christian experi- 
ence. It is the vital member of the organism of proofs, 
in which the life of the whole is concentrated as in no 
other. It is, to change the figure, the keystone of the 
arch of evidences. We can conceive of the other argu- 
ments as to be dispensed with under certain cireum- 
stances ; but this is absolutely indispensable.’ 


312 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIA N EXPERIENCE. 


That I am not going too far in ascribing this high 
importance to the proof from experience may be read- 
lly shown. All men stand in one of two relations to 
the Christian realities and the spiritual life to which 
they give rise—either within their sphere or outside of 
it. If they are inside, then the most important evi- 
dence must be the direct, personal, experimental knowl- 
edge. They may employ the other evidences to con- 
firm the evidence of Christian experience, but the lat- 
ter is the solid foundation upon which their certainty 
rests. If, on the other hand, men are outside of the 
sphere of the Christian realities, they cannot, while they 
remain in this condition, have complete proof of the 
truth of Christianity. Their only way to obtain it is 
to become Christians. To such persons the objective 
evidences, though they may bring probability, greater 
or less, of the truth of Christianity, can never bring 
certainty. Iluman testimony has its high value and 
ought to be respected. But human testimony is fal- 
lible and cannot of itself bring a personal conviction 
concerning a subject of such vast importance. In like 
manner the reasonableness of Christianity is a strong 
recommendation of it. But, apart from the question 
whether the man who stands outside of the Christian 
sphere can appreciate its reasonableness, mere reason- 
ableness is not a sufficient ground of certitude. It has 
to do with notions, not with things. It affords pre- 
sumption, not proof. Systems which the best thought 
of men long ago rejected have seemed highly reason- 
able in their day to the most thoughtful minds. The 
only complete proof of a fact in the world of sense is 
to see it with our own eyes and touch it with onr own 
hands. The only complete evidence of a fact in the 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 3138 


spiritual world is to experience it through the action 
of our spiritual susceptibilities and powers.’ 

The other evidences have an important preliminary 
use in opening the way for the evidence of Christian 
experience. They do not, however, carry with them 
their full force until the higher evidence has been at- 
tained, and they are seen in the light which it throws 
upon them. It is thus alone that their probability 
is turned into certainty. To the Christian who has 
tasted and seen that the Lord is good the historical 
and rational proofs, and those forms of the practical 
which lie outside of personal experience, carry with 
them a power of which the outsider has but little con- 
ception. 

It is especially with reference to this fact that I wish 
to show the relation of the experimental proof to the 
other evidences. In doing so I shall follow the classi- 
fication outlined in the first lecture.” We distinguish 
the historical, the rational, and the practical evidences 
of Christianity. These we shall examine serzatem. 

I. Let us begin by considering the relation in which 
the evidence of Christian experience stands to that 
branch of the historical evidence which is concerned 
with the questions respecting the authenticity, genuine- 
ness, credibility, and inspiration of the Bible. 

It has already been shown to what an extent the 
evidence of Christian experience is dependent upon 
the evidence for the truth of the Scriptures.’ Chris- 
tian experience is in a true sense the product of the 
Scriptures. Not that they are the efficient cause of it ; 
that is God in Christ acting through the Holy Spirit. 
But they are the instrumental cause, inasmuch as they 
are the record of the redemptive revelation and the 


314 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCR. 


guide of the Christian life. God comes to the soul, as 
we have seen, through the Gospel, and this Word of 
God, which is the quintessence of the divine revela- 
tion, can be traced mediately or immediately to the 
Bible. The initial experience of the Christian life and 
also its later experiences are shaped and colored by 
the influence of the Bible. There is, indeed, what may 
be called a living tradition of the Gospel, which has a 
relative independence ; but the church continually 
goes back to the Bible for the correction of this tradi- 
tion. There is no reason to believe that Christianity 
would for any long time continue to exist as an active 
power in the world, were the Bible to be blotted out 
of existence. As Protestantism has made the Bible 
the “formal principle ” of its theology, so it has made 
it the same of its religions life. 

Accordingly, a certain degree of conviction respect- 
ing the force of the biblical evidence for the truth of 
Christianity must be presupposed as an essential condi- 
tion of Christian experience, and of the evidence de- 
rived from that experience. This does not necessarily 
imply that the individual believer has convinced him- 
self, before his conversion, of the reliability of the 
evidence for the authenticity, credibility, and inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures. But it does imply, at least in 
ordinary cases, a belief, based upon grounds more or 
less satisfactory, in the substantial trustworthiness of 
the Bible as the record of the redemptive revelation 
and the standard of Christian faith and practice. This 
belief in very many cases is founded upon the general 
opinion, in which the individual shares, and which has 
for its basis the conviction of the competent few who 
have examined the proofs and come to decided opin- 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 315 


ions; as well as upon the belief and testimony of 
Christians, whose influence extends to those who have 
not access, like themselves, to the Christian realities, 
which are the sources of the Bible itself. 

I am anxious to emphasize this dependence of the 
evidence of experience upon the historical evidence re- 
lating to the Bible. It grows out of that organic re- 
lation of the different proofs and their mutual depen- 
dence, to which reference has already been made. In 
view of this fact, I would insist upon the importance 
of a thorough grounding of the young in the evidences 
for the authenticity, credibility, and inspiration of the 
scriptural books. It is in many cases a most helpful 
preparative for the application of the experimental 
proof. Such a grounding is desirable in view of the 
assaults made by sceptics upon the Bible. So, too, these 
evidences have their preliminary value in the case of 
doubters or unbelievers. If men will not come imme- 
diately to Christ and test his salvation for themselves, 
or if on account of intellectual difficulties they feel 
themselves unable to do so, it is well to remove the 
obstacles out of the way, so far as this is possible. Ta 
doubt whether any man has ever reached full intellec- 
tual satisfaction respecting the truth of Christianity in 
this way, but I would not deny the value of the evi- 
dences in such a case. 

But while the historical evidence for the truth of 
the Scriptures conditions the evidence of Christian ex- 
perience in such a way that the latter is to a certain 
extent dependent upon the former, there is a much 
truer and higher sense in which the relation is re- 
versed. At the best the effect produced by the histor- 
ical evidence is imperfect, a mere jides humana and 


3816 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EX PERIENCE. 


not a fides divina. It is at most a faith to satisfy the 
intellect, not a faith that has power to bring the whole 
man into living union with Christ. When we have 
been led along the path of the preliminary evidence to 
the discovery of the high and convincing evidence of 
a personal Christian experience, then, and not till then, 
we can return to the former and estimate it at its true 
value. 

Now I claim that only a Christian, who has gained 
the altitude of the experimental evidence, can appre- 
ciate the full value of the evidences for the authen- 
ticity, credibility, and inspiration of the Scriptures. 
Ile has drunk at the fountain-head and knows how to 
estimate the worth of the streams which flow from it. 
Ile has tested the truth of the Bible method of re- 
demption in his own inward life. He has come into 
contact with the great salvation itself, which entered 
the world in the sacred history recorded by the Bible. 
He has made personal acquaintance with the Father, 
the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the kingdom of 
God and life eternal are known in his inmost experi- 
ence. The substantial truth of the Bible is thus veri- 
fied to him in a way the validity of which he cannot 
doubt. It is with this knowledge that he approaches 
the historical questions as to age, authorship, object, 
circumstances, relation to contemporaneous history, and 
the like. 

It will be said that I am preparing to beg the whole 
question of historical evidence, since I urge that our 
alleged higher evidence must have the precedence. 
But this is farthest from the fact. We talk of investi- 
gation without presuppositions; but such investigations 
are impossible, and would be worthless, were they not 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENOES.' Oke 


impossible.’ Mere events do not make history. All 
history is the working out of ideas under a higher 
guidance. We must have some knowledge of the ideal 
element, if we are going to give any rational interpre- 
tation of the facts. But such knowledge is a presup- 
position. Every man approaches the historical ques- 
tions connected with the study of the Old and New 
Testaments with presuppositions. The great question 
is, Are they justifiable ones? It is not a question be- 
tween presuppositions and no presuppositions, but be- 
tween right ones and wrong ones. Now the historical 
questions connected with the authenticity and credibil- 
ity of the biblical books, and especially those which 
arise from the investigations of the so-called “ higher 
criticism,” are of a somewhat obscure and intricate 
character. Ifwecome to them with a prejudice against 
revelation or with no proper understanding of it, we 
cannot estimate the facts at their true value.” But 
when we have tested by our experience the revelation 
which the Bible records and found it true, then the 
whole case becomes different. Then we can see the 
true value of the historical facts. 

The Protestant Reformers and the age following the 
Reformation clearly recognized the importance of this 
experimental evidence as the true proof of the truth of 
the Scriptures. They expressed their conviction in the 
assertion that the real evidence of the divine character 
of the Bible is the ¢estimonium Spiritus Sancte enter- 
num. This inward witness, according to the old theo- 
logians, was not an objective voice of God in the soul 
attesting the truth of the Scripture, but that illumina- 
tion of the Spirit by which the believer is enabled to 
perceive its divinity and truth. The spiritual eyes 


318 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


are opened, and the Christian recognizes in the Bible 
the presence and power of God. In the last lecture? 
I tried to show that this testimony of the Spirit is it- 
self a part of the evidence of Christian experience, 
and that the persuasion of the truth and divinity of 
the Scriptures which it produces is founded upon the 
personal knowledge of the Christian realities involved 
in the larger experience. 

Now the testimony of the Spirit does not by any 
means prove the truth of everything in the Bible or | 
make historical investigation and biblical criticism un- 
necessary. What it does do is to show that the great 
facts and truths which form the essence of the Bible 
prove on experiment to be the divine facts and truths 
the Bible claims. Inasmuch as the Bible is not a 
mere aggregate of disconnected books, but an organic 
unity dealing with one great theme, to which all the 
parts have a_ well-defined relation, this verification 
through the witness of the Spirit goes far toward 
verifying the Bible as a whole. Moreover, the Chris- 
tian, in whose heart the Spirit of God is present, is 
able to recognize the handiwork and presence of the 
same Spirit in the Bible, at least to a very considerable 
extent, and this not only in the revelation which the 
Bible records, but also in the record itself. N or is this 
all: the testimony of the Spirit thus becomes a test— 
not, indeed, the only one, but in some respects the 
most important one—of the inspiration, and therefore 
of the canonicity, of the individual books of the Bible. 
In a word, then, the believer has through his own ex- 
perience the proof of the truth and divine authorship 
of the Bible. This is the ground upon which the un- 
lettered Christian, who knows nothing of the ordinary 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 319 


evidences, accepts the Bible with undoubting trust as 
the Word of God. For the practical purposes of the 
Christian life it is sufficient.” 

I do not, however, claim that the testimony of the 
Spirit is the “angio of all the problems which beset 
the student of the Scriptures. It does not alone and of 
itself answer the objections of the unbeliever. There 
are historical questions and questions of textual and 
literary criticism which may, and indeed must, have a 
very different answer. God did not mean that Chris- 
tians should meet these difficult problems with the 
mere appeal to the inward testimony of the Spirit. 
Such a procedure would go far to justify the position 
of the German theologian Michaelis, who declared that 
he had never experienced the testimony of the Spirit ;” 
for it was doubtless a testimony respecting such questions 
as these that he hadin mind. The witness within does 
not deterinine the age or authorship of a biblical book ; 
it does not enable us to settle merely historical questions. 

But I do claim that only the man who comes to the 
examination of the Bible and its phenomena with that 
first-hand knowledge of the truth of its great facts and 
doctrines which comes from personal experience 1s 
competent to enter upon these critical and historical 
investigations and likely to find a satisfactory solution 
of them. What we complain of is that these investi- 
gations have been so largely carried on by men who 
have distinctly repudiated the Christian experience and 
have come to the subject with naturalistic presupposi- 
tions. And still more do we complain that Christian 
scholars often allow themselves blindly to follow such 
men, when their own stand-point, if they could only 
understand it, is altogether different.” 


320 EVIDENCE OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


When, however, the evidence of Christian experi- 
ence has been given its proper place, the way is opened 
for the fullest and freest investigation of the historical 
and critical questions relating to the Bible. It is not 
the Christian who has the witness in himself and knows 
what he believes, who is timid about subjecting the 
Bible to the tests of criticism. Such a Christian has 
no fear that the Bible will suffer by dealing thus with 
it, but is convinced that whatever new facts may be 
discovered concerning it, will only serve to bring out 
more fully the divine claim of the precious Book to 
truth and authority. Te is quite willing to revise his 
views as to details, and he quietly awaits the results of 
those scholarly investigations which have for their ob- 
ject to determine the time, order, and structure of the 
larger portions of the Scripture, and their relation to 
each other. He will lose nothing if the Pentateuchal 
question is settled upon an entirely different basis from 
the traditional. He can afford to make the largest con- 
cessions to criticism, provided only it does not proceed 
upon presumptions destructive to revelation and antag- 
onistic to spiritual religion. In a word, such a Chris- 
tian, since he is in full possession of Christianity as a 
living reality, is sure that the Book which not only re- 
lates how the redemptive revelation first came into the 
world, but gives that revelation in its authentic forin, 
the Book which has been instrumental in bringing him 
into personal relations to Christ, will successfully stand 
all the tests to which it can be subjected. The guide- 
book which has brought him into the heavenly country, 
and is leading him step by step to the city which hath 
foundations, cannot be wrong. He is desirous that it 
should be thoroughly investigated with all the appli- 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 321 


ances of literary and historical science. Te is glad to 
know every new fact that can throw light upon its ori- 
gin and composition. He has tested the truth of the 
revelation in himself, and he is not afraid that the rec- 
ord of revelation will be harmed by the most searching 
investigation. 

The Christians who are afraid of the full and free 
examination of biblical questions are generally those 
who are without the evidence of Christian experience, 
or those who having it at their disposal will not use 
it. Because they have not come to a clear understand- 
ing of the scientific value of the proof within, they are 
in constant dread lest the foundations of the external 
proof may be shaken. It seems to me, as I look at the 
current controversies, and glance forward into the fut- 
ure, seeking to discern the coming experiences of the 
Christian church, that we need more than anything 
else to understand the relation in which the evidence 
of Christian experience stands to the historical evi- 
dences of the authenticity, credibility, and inspiration 
of the Scriptures."* Tow much force is now wasted 
that ought to be applied to the defence and upbuild- 
ing of our common Christianity, force that goes only 
to the perpetuation of controversy and_ bickering 
among Christians! I hope the future has better 
things in store for us. I long for the time to come 
when this continual conflict will be over, and the criti- 
cal questions settled, at least to the satisfaction of can- 
did and sober-minded Christians, and when men will 
once more receive the Bible with the old, simple faith, 
and dvwe upon it." 

The Christian who feels the full power of the evi- 
dence of experience finds in the Bible one of the strong- 

21 


322 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


est proofs for the truth of Christianity. Led himself 
by the Spirit of God, he is sure, as he reads this Book, 
that the same Spirit was active in its composition. It 
is to him the rule and standard of Christian truth and 
practice. By it he corrects the one-sidedness of his 
own Christian experience. To it the church goes, that 
it may test and measure its beliefs by this primitive 
record of the Christian life. Read in the light of a 
personal experience, the Bible shows itself to be the 
most wonderful Book, or collection of books, the 
world has ever seen. It carries its evidence with it. 
Iam sure that if we examine the connection between 
experience and the Bible, we shall find that the 
church has given to the latter the peerless place which 
it holds, only on the ground of the former. 

II. We have now to consider the relation of the 
evidence of experience to the evidence of miracles. 
This is a matter of very great importance. The apolo- 
getics which prevailed during the earlier part of the 
present century laid the chief stress of its proof upon 
the arguments from miracles and prophecy, especially 
the former.* This, supplemented by a few applica- 
tions of the historical and rational evidence, constituted 
the whole of the system of proof. The proposition 
which the apologetics of the period just referred to 
set itself to prove was that Christianity is super- 
natural. Christianity, as we have seen, was prevail- 
ingly regarded as a system of doctrine, religious and 
moral, It was not clearly distinguished from the 
Scriptures which give us the original record of it. The 
problem was to prove the form, rather than the con- 
tents, of Christianity.* Let it be shown that the 
original introduction of Christianity into the world was 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 323 


accompanied by unmistakable divine attestations, and 
the proof was complete. Then the contents of revela- 
tion must be accepted without question as divine. 
Such attestations were found in the miracles, which 
being “ violations of the laws of nature,” were indisput- 
able evidence of the interposition of God. 

I have spoken of the deistical tendency which the 
old evidential science shared with the systems opposed 
to Christianity. This showed itself in nothing more 
clearly than in the matter beforeus. The deist declared 
that God, having created the world and endowed it with 
its laws, remained behind the scenes, taking no farther 
part in its affairs. The deistic or rationalistic Christian, 
while not going so far as this in the assertion of the 
divine withdrawal from activity in the world, was in- 
clined to think of God as under ordinary circumstances 
thus quiescent. But he differed from his adversary in 
maintaining that on special occasions, for important 
purposes connected with his great purpose of revela- 
tion, God broke through the barriers he had set up, 
bestowing new truth upon men and attesting that truth 
by violations of natural law, that is, by miracles. The 
miracles, accordingly, once proved to have taken place, 
were incontrovertible proof of the truth of the revela- 
tion, which was then to be accepted on the authority 
of God. 

Now the actual occurrence of the miracles was proved 
by testimony, and the old apologetics displayed the 
greatest skill and logical power in conducting this 
proof, making a very strong argument, possessed of a 
high degree of probability, that the testimony of the 
Gospel writers is to be accepted. Our recent theolo- 
gians, in their reaction from the antiquated methods of 


324 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Christian evidence, are not inclined to give the ad- 
vocates of proof by miracles the credit which fairly 
belongs to them. The world has never seen acuter 
and on the whole better reasoning of its sort than that 
by which men like Paley demonstrated the trustworthj. 
ness of the testimony on which the Bible miracles rest. 
Such testimony would be accepted in any court of 
justice in matters of ordinary importance, or would be 
regarded as sufficient to authenticate any ordinary his- 
tory.”” 

But just here appears the point upon which every- 
thing turns. The matters and the history with which 
the evidences of Christianity have to do are not or- 
dinary, and testimony to events so extraordinary can- 
not be received as alone sufficient, when we have to 
verify alleged miracles which happened so many cen- 
turies ago. The famous argument of Hume'*—an 
argument that has not yet ceased to be influential— 
was based upon the assumption that it is more likely, 
as human experience goes, that the testimony to the 
occurrence of miracles was mistaken than that they 
actually took place. Experience gives innumerable 
precedents for the fallibility of human testimony, but 
none for the violation of the laws of nature; therefore 
in this matter of miracles it is wiser to trust nature than 
the testimony of fallible men. | 

It has been shown a thousand times that Hume rea- 
soned sophistically, since he took it for granted that ex- 
perience knows of no violation of the laws of nature, 
the very point in dispute. Still, while Hume’s argu- 
ment did not overthrow the evidence of miracles, it did 
disclose the weakness of the old method of stating and 
using the evidence. Mere testimony, no matter how 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 325 


good it may be, is not a sufficient basis for the authen- 
tication of a divine revelation. It gives at most high 
probability, but can never give certainty. Therefore 
miracles taken alone in their bare marvellousness are 
an inadequate proof of the truth of such a system as 
Christianity. Even those who first witnessed the mira- 
cles were not always convinced, and after so long a 
lapse of time we are quite unable to rest the full 
weight of our faith upon this one support. If the 
only or chief reason why I believe that God hears 
my prayers and that Jesus Christ saves me is that 
the miracles actually occurred nearly nineteen hun- 
dred years ago, I can never feel secure in my faith, no 
matter how strong the argument from probability may 
be made. 

Modern theologians have felt strongly the need of 
reconstructing the argument from miracles, and have 
been signally successful in the attempt to do so.” They 
have recognized the fact that the weak point in the ar- 
guinent as it used to be stated was its deistical char- 
acter, which gave it some advantage in the fight with 
the deists themselves, but laid it open all the more to 
the attacks of sceptics like Hume. Christianity is not 
merely a doctrinal system. It is a historical revelation 
in redemptive power, comprising at once divine truth 
and grace. It goes forward, now that the historical 
revelation has been brought completely into the world, 
in the progressive redemption of men and their activ- 
ity in the kingdom of God. It is the present power 
and agency of Christ, doing his Father’s redemptive 
work by means of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, 
Christianity is not a code or a theological system, 
which can be handed down from heaven ready-made in 


3826 HVIDENCE OF CHRIST! AN HXPHRIENCE. 


a documentary form and authenticated by miracles 
alone. Its form cannot be verified apart from its con- 
tents. 

Miracles are not violations of the laws of nature. 
The old confusion of thought on this subject, which 
held possession of the theological mind go long and so 
persistently, has been cleared away. We are able now 
to distinguish between forces and laws. The force, 
material or spiritual, is the cause. The Jaws are ideal, 
mere statements of the way in which forces act when 
the conditions for their action are present. Laws never 
act; but forces, when they act, act according to their 
laws. There is not the slightest reason to believe that 
God ever violates a law of nature ; rather his veracity 
is involved in the maintenance of these laws, one jot 
or one tittle of which will not fail till all be fulfilled. 
What God does in the miracle is to produce an effect 
Which is altogether or partially independent of the 
forces or causes ordinarily acting in nature. <A help- 
ful, although incomplete, analogy is to be found in the 
causal activity of the human will. When I lift a book 
into the air, a spiritual cause, namely, my choice and 
the consequent volition, comes in to supersede the 
lower causes, and in part to give direction to them. 
These lower forces are not interfered with, nor are 
their laws violated, but in so far as they continue to 
act at all, they act according to their laws. 

Moreover, the deistic view of God, which regards 
him as the more or less passive spectator of the opera- 
tions of his world, has yielded to a more completely 
theistic view. We see that God acts as truly through 
second causes as when he performs a miracle. The 
difference is not one of more or less divine power em- 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 327 


ployed, but of different methods of using the same di- 
vine power. In his ordinary providence God employs 
the forces commonly at work in nature, namely, what 
we call second causes or natural forces. In the mira- 
cles he either dispenses with these forces altogether, 
or, what is more common, uses them only in part, pro- 
ducing an effect which can only partially be accounted 
for by them, in either case supplementing them but 
not in any way violating their laws. 

But further, our modern theologians have come to 
see that miracles are not simply external attestations to 
the truth of a revelation, whose form is to be proved, 
in order that its contents may be implicitly accepted ; 
but that they are rather constituent parts of the revela- 
tion itself. They make God known, unveil hin, dis- 
close his nature, teach his truth, communicate his 
grace. In the miracles God does in an extraordinary 
way, by means which we call supernatural as not being 
contained in the common system of natural forces, 
what in the inspired teachings of his servants he does 
in another extraordinary way. The miracle is a proof 
of God in the same way that the teachings of the 
prophets are a proof of God, because they make God 
known to men. It makes known not only God’s 
power—though it does this signally—but also, and pre- 
eminently, his grace. Especially is this true of the 
miracles of Christ. They were revelations of the di- 
vine in him. We did, indeed, perform them by the 
power of the Holy Spirit, whose official endowment 
for the work of his ministry he received at his baptism, 
but they were at the same time the outpouring of the 
divine redemptive power of which he was personally 
the source. When he turned the water into wine at 


328 EVIDENCE oF CHRISTIAN EXPERIEN CZ, 


Cana, he “ manifested his glory ” as the only-begotten 
Son incarnate (John ii, dy 

Thus our modern apologetics has come to give the 
miracles an entirely different place in the system of 
proofs from that which they used to occupy. The fact 
is recognized that owing to the inherent uncertainty 
of human testimony the miracles, taken by themselves, 
cannot have the same convincing force for us which 
they had for those who witnessed them, though, as 
I said a moment ago, it is to be borne in mind that 
even those original witnesses did not always accept 
their evidential value, while some actually ascribed them 
to the power of Satan (Matt. xii. 24 seq.). Therefore 
we do not rest the Weight of the proof so exclusively 
upon them as we used to do. We take the miracles in 
their connection with the general system of revelation, 
point out their consistency with that revelation in 
its other forms, and show the relation in which they 
stand to Jesus Christ. Especially we show how the 
keystone of the arch of miracles, namely, the resur- 
rection of Christ, is the culmination of the whole 
revelation, as well as of the wonderful career of the 
Saviour ; and how it is an integral part of the organ- 
ism of redemptive revelation. 

Thus we get a foothold for the miracles before we 
employ them at all in proof. Weare able to show that 
it would itself be a miracle, if a revelation so utterly 
unique in the world’s history were not to give proof of 
itself in outward nature, as well as in the hearts of men 
and the history of the race. We can make it plain that 
for such a being as the Christ not to have performed 
miracles would have been far more wonderful than that 
he should have performed the works actual] y ascribed to 


- ti tetse, 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 329 


him. We can point out the entire conformity of these 
miracles with the nature of the revelation and the 
character of Christ. In this way we are able to over- 
come the presumption, which must and ought to exist, 
against the occurrence of miracles (and which, although 
it does not—as Hume insisted—invalidate the testi- 
mony, yet does raise a prima facie case against it), and 
in its place to establish a presumption in favor of the 
miracles. It becomes the more important that we 
should avail ourselves of such a presumption, in order 
that we may be able successfully to meet the extrava- 
gant claims of the advocates of modern miracles, both 
Roman Catholic” and Protestant.” These persons— 
whose sincerity we cannot doubt, however much we 
may find fault with their theology and their practical 
judgment—also rely on testimony, and on the ground 
of it lay claim to a repetition of all the wonders of the 
apostolic age. We must be able to show that our tes- 
timony is better than theirs, and we do it by exhibiting 
the relation between the Scripture miracles and the 
redemptive revelation of which they formed a part, 
and especially their relation to Jesus Christ. 

Modern evidential science thus makes the miracles 
not the main evidence of Christianity, but an impor- 
tant subordinate element in the organic system of the 
evidences. We are not disturbed by the objection 
that we reason in a circle, since we authenticate the 
miracles by the revelation, and then the revelation 
by the miracles; for we know that in all proof of 
facts or real existences such a procedure is not only 
justifiable, but to a certain extent necessary, on account 
of the organic relation of the different elements of the 
proof to each other. For the time being this kind of 


3380 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


evidence has fallen to some degree into disrepute. It 
used to be overdone, and we are suffering the conse- 
quences ; but I see no reason why in its reconstructed 
form the argument from miracles should not play a part 
as essential, if not as prominent, in the evidences of the 
future as it did in the system which prevailed at the 
beginning of the century. 

I think there can be no question that our modern 
evangelical theologians are just as loyal to the miracu- 
lous element in the revelation as any of their predeces- 
sors. We do, indeed, feel the influences that are at 
work about us, and that tend to depreciate all belief in 
the supernatural and to give a naturalistic explanation 
of all things, religion included. But I doubt whether 


these influences affect us more with respect to our be-. 


lief in miracles than with respect to our belief in the 
other parts of our system. We clearly recognize the 
fact that the Bible with the miraculous element elimi- 
nated would be an altogether mutilated and emasculated 
book. Christianity stands or falls with the miracles. 
Whoever denies them must, if he will be consistent, 
deny the other supernatural elements in Christianity. 
But it does not follow from this that we need to give 
them the same exclusive function in the evidences of 
Christianity which used to be assigned to them. It is 
certainly a great advance which has been made in this 
respect, and we shall feel it more and more as we come 
to recognize the fact that since we have thrown over- 
board our deistic encumbrances, most of the old attacks 
fail to reach us at all. 

I have spoken thus at length—I fear, too much at 
length—of the evidence of miracles, before considering 
its relation to the evidence of Christian experience, 


ee a a a re 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 331 


because the difference between the old and the new 
apologetics nowhere comes more fully to ight than in 
their methods of dealing with this important branch of 
the Christian proofs. But though I have gone so far 
afield, [ have all the time had in view the proper sub- 
ject of this lecture, and to this | now come. Valuable 
as the proof from miracles is in the system of Christian 
evidences, especially in its reconstructed form, it, like 
the other historical proofs, manifests its full use and 
significance only when it is approached from the 
stand-point of the evidence of Christian experience. 
Even the believer, when he looks at the miracles merely 
from the historical side, often fails to grasp their true 
importance. But it is different when the experience 
of the Christian is the presupposition of his use of the 
miracles in proof. He has a personal knowledge of 
redemption, since it has been begun and is progressing 
in his own spiritual life. He stands in vital relations 
to the great Christian realities— God the Father, 
Christ the Saviour, the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of 
redemption. He is able, therefore, to recognize in the 
miracles a manifestation of the same power which is 
working in himself, and a revelation of the same real- 
ities. 

In the first place, regeneration and the new life to 
which it has given rise are of the greatest importance 
inrendering the miracles credible.” The great change 
in which redemption gets its first firm foothold in the 
individual life has often been called a miracle, and not 
without reason, for the expression is more than a figure 
of speech. All evangelical theologians insist that re- 
generation is supernatural, in the sense of manifesting 
the immediate agency and activity of God in Christ 


332 HVIDENCH OF CHRISTIAN BX PERIENCE, 


working through the Ioly Spirit. In form, I am in- 
clined to think, the claim that it is a miracle is inac- 
curate. A miracle in the strict meaning of the term 
is an event in external nature, and not in the spiritual 
realm. It is an event appearing in the nexus of physi- 
cal effects, of which the cause is only partially or not 
at ali to be identified with natural agencies, physical or 
human. In it God either uses no means or else makes 
only a partial use of means. To the first of these eri- 
teria regeneration does not correspond ; it is a spirit- 
ual effect. But as regards the second criterion, the di- 
vine use of means, regeneration may be well called a 
miracle. God does, indeed, use means in effecting it, 
and these are in all ordinary cases essential. But the 
means only partially explain the result. We are not 
here in the sphere of second causes, as when we have 
to do with God’s ordinary providence. No thoughtful 
inan—much less an evangelical theologian—would ever 
rest satisfied with calling regeneration an act of God’s 
providence. Over and above the means employed 
there is a direct working of the divine efficiency ; or, 
to state the same fact in different words, in regenera- 
tion God works both through means and without 
means. It is this unmediated remainder which gives 
to regeneration its miraculous character. And whatis 
true of regeneration is also true of the new life in its 
continuance ; it is a continuous “ miracle of prace." 
We have here the essence of the miracle, though its 
form—namely, the effect in the physical world—is not 
present. Luther had a clear recognition of this fact 
when he said: “ For these are the greatest of all mir- 
acles, that God through his Word makes our souls 
alive, that he will make our bodies to live at the last 


RHLATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 393 


day, that he baptizes us in his blood, and so washes 
away our sins that he daily vanquishes hell, death, sin, 
and the law.” * 

Now to one who has this personal experience of God 
in Christ, this inward miracle of grace, the miracles 
are not strange or incredible. They are accredited by 
the knowledge the Christian has of the power which 
gave rise to them and which has wrought such a change 
in himself. That the God of redemption should have 
seen fit, for the purpose of introducing the Christian 
redemption into the world, to use these outward miracu- 
lous means is wholly reasonable. The only question 
is, whether we are to expect miracles at the present 
time; and this question is answered in the negative, 
not throngh any doubt of God’s ability, which is 
abundantly attested by the regenerative and sanctify- 
ing exercise of power to-day, but on the ground that 
the redemptive revelation is once for all in the world, 
and that the outward evidences of divine power which 
once were necessary are no longer requisite——a con- 
sideration which passes from presumption into proof 
when we examine the alleged miracles of our own 
day and find in them nothing that cannot be ex- 
plained as the result of God’s providence. The 
Christian who has thought out the data of his own 
spiritual life has no trouble about miracles. It is only 
the rationalistic Christian, who will not make use of 
the facts within, who finds himself offended by the 
miraculous element in the Scriptures and is on the 
alert to explain it away, as far as it is possible to do so. 
It is the firm possession and the scientific use of the 
experience within that makes the miracles credible. 

The famous words with which Hume concludes his 


334 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


Essay on Miracles were undoubtedly insincere, being 
intended to express scorn and contempt for the belief 
of Christians. But Caiaphas is not the only high-priest 
in the course of human history who has prophesied 
with a deeper insight than he was conscious of. Our 
recent Christian thought, which has come into a deeper 
and truer understanding of Christianity than that of 
the age in which Hume lived, is content to take the 
sceptic’s words as trne, though in a sense which he did 
not perceive in them. Hume says, “ Upon the whole 
we may conclude that the Christian Revelation not only 
was at first attended with miracles, but even at this 
day cannot be believed by any reasonable person with- 
out one, Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of 
its veracity ; and whoever is moved by faith to assent 
to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own 
person, which subverts all the principles of his under- 
standing, and gives him a determination to believe 
what is contrary to custom and experience.” ** The 
great doubter is right in the main point which he 
makes ; it is the “continued miracle” (or what is in its 
deepest meaning tantamount to a miracle), of which 
the believer is conscious in his own person, that gives 
the crowning proof of the possibility of the miracles, 
and so bestows upon the miracles themselves their 
highest value as evidences of Christianity. 

This relation of the Christian’s experience to the 
evidence of miracles is further confirmed by the fact 
that through his experience he is enabled to understand 
and give due weight to the inner meaning of the mira- 
cles. They are, as we have seen, revelations of God, 
manifestations of the same redemptive grace which 
found expression in the teachings of the Master and 


RELATION TO OTHER HVIDENCES. 3385 


his disciples, and in the life of the Master himself. 
The Christian experiences this redemptive grace in his 
own life. He experiences it, as coming to him from 
the Father, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit. He 
knows it as the child knows its mother’s touch or tones. 
In the miracles, as they are recorded in the Scriptures, 
he recognizes the same characteristics. The power 
which produced them is clearly seen to be the same 
power that is working in his soul, because the same 
love, the same truth, the same grace, are displayed in 
them. The Christian who reads of the miracles re- 
corded by the sacred writers comes to his own. It is 
not the physical power exhibited in a miracle which au- 
thenticates it, but the spiritual features stamped upon 
it. We read of the miracles recorded in the apocryphal 
gospels, or in ecclesiastical history, with very different 
feelings; they belong to a wholly different sphere ; 
even though, for the sake of arguinent, we should con- 
cede their truth, yet they bear no evidence of having 
come from our God. The same impression is made 
when we come to examine the alleged miracles of 
modern times. What we discover here is not our 
Lord manifesting God’s love in the sphere of outward 
nature, and doing it with that divine economy which 
was intended to guard against the abuse of the miracu- 
lous; but men invoking the miraculous for their own 
selfish ends, turning the Christian church away from 
its distinctively spiritual work and endeavoring to 
transform it into an eleemosynary institution for the 
healing of all diseased bodies. One wonders whether 
the claimants of modern miracles have any under- 
standing at all of the purpose of the divine grace 
within, 


3836 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERI ENCE. 


Very different is it with the Bible miracles as they 
are interpreted by a living Christian faith. They are 
seen to be divine, because they are so truly the mani- 
festation of that redemptive power already known in 
experience. Thus understood, they become evidence 
for the truth of Christianity of very high value and 
indisputable cogency. 

III. We have now to consider the relation of the 
evidence of Christian experience to the evidence of 
prophecy. This topic does not demand as extended 
treatment as that with which we have just been 
engaged. It will be sufficient to indicate only the 
most important points of view. 

The modern evidences do not lay so much stress as 
did the old upon the fulfilment of definite and detailed 
prophecies, though they do not leave this out of ac- 
count. They rather concentrate their thought upon 
the great organie prophecy which runs through the 
whole Bible, connecting the Old-Testament with the 
New, and both with the future of Christianity. The 
central fact in this prophecy is the progress and con- 
summation of the redemptive kingdom of God as 
realized in the Christ, who, with all the power and the 
grace of the Godhead concentrated in his divinely hu- 
man person, is at last to reign in the perfected king- 
dom King of kings and Lord of lords. Yet the more 
definite predictions of particular historical events oceur- 
ring in the progress of the kingdom also find a place, 
though the argument from this kind of prophecies is 
presented with more caution than of old, when un- 
doubtedly many of the alleged predictions produced 
would not bear the interpretation placed upon them.” 

Unquestionably prophecy in so far as it has been 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 3387 


fulfilled is a most convincing proof of a supernatural 
power at work in the prediction and the events which 
constituted its fulfilment. But in the interpretation of 
history, as has already been remarked, much depends 
upon the presuppositions we bring to the examination. 
Men like Buckle and Draper find in history only the 
working out of physical laws. If we could make men 
actually see the fulfilment of prophecy, we might con- 
vince their intellects, if we did not change their hearts. 
But men are not so quick to see as we would have 
them, and the opponents of Christianity know how 
to put such an interpretation upon the alleged facts 
of prophecy as to give them a purely naturalistic 
explanation. Our modern Hegelian philosophers and 
Spencerian evolutionists appear themselves among the 
prophets and indulge in vaticinations based upon their 
knowledge of the laws of human progress. Even those 
who are favorably disposed toward Christianity often 
stand in doubt as to how far they are justified upon 
historical grounds in finding a supernatural element in 
the predictions of the Scriptures. 

But the Christian, who has in his own experience 
verified the truth of the Gospel and come into personal 
contact with the Christian realities, approaches the sub- 
ject in a very different way. Prediction and fulfil- 
ment meet in his inner life. The divine redemptive 
power is working in him. Ie is himself in a true 
sense a prophet. The same Spirit who inspired the 
holy men of old, giving them the supernatural knowl- 
edge of God and his purposes which enabled them to 
deliver their prophetic message, dwells in him, ena- 
bling him by his illumination to understand the myste- 
ries of the kingdom. The Christian, thus illuminated, 

22 


338 HVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


knows the connection of the divine redemption with 
the past ; he understands its meaning for the future. 
Christ, the great fact of scriptural prophecy, is the 
great fact of his consciousness. The kingdom of God, 
Which is the final cause of all progress in the redemp- 
tive working of God, is within him; and he is within 
it. His own life is the progressive fulfilment of a 
prophecy, of which he first became aware when the 
Gospel call came to him—the prophecy that whoever 
accepts Christ’s grace shall be born again, made par- 
taker of eternal life, sanctified, strengthened for ser- 
vice, and at last saved in God’s everlasting kingdom.” 

The Christian, therefore, is able to give the argu- 
ment from prophecy a fuller and deeper meaning than 
the old apologetics could ever find in it. To him it is 
only a single element in the evidence that in all ages 
of the world’s history the triune God has been active 
in redemption, and that the good work which has been 
begun will go steadily forward to its completion. It is 
not, and cannot be, strange to him that God should as- 
sure the world of this fact in supernatural ways, either 
by making known the great crises in the future of 
his kingdom or by disclosing particular events in its 
progress. 

IV. We shall next examine the relation in which 
the experimental proof stands to the evidence derived 
from the person and work of Jesus Christ. This, as 
was noticed in the first lecture,”* stands on the border 
between the historical and rational evidences, belong- 
ing to both. Unquestionably the fiercest theological 
battles of our century have been waged around the 
person of Jesus of Nazareth. A general agreement 
has been reached among the enemies and friends of 


RELATION TO OTHER HVIDENCES. 339 


Christian truth with respect to the historical existence 
of the man Jesus and the substantial accuracy of the 
Gospel story concerning him, at least so far as its non- 
miraculous contents are concerned. Since Strauss 
published his first Leben Jesu, in which he applied the 
mythical theory to the explanation of the New-Testa- 
ment narratives respecting Jesus Christ, the warfare 
has been constant, and to-day it is still going on. 
There is a conviction on both sides that the Christian 
view of Christ, according to which he is the incarnate 
Son of God come to earth for the redemption of man- 
kind, the Christ of the virgin mother, of the mira- 
cles, of the resurrection and ascension, the Christ who 
died that he might save the world—there is a convic- 
tion, I say, that this is the citadel of the Christian faith. 
The aim of the opponents of Christianity—upon the 
accomplishment of which they have lavished the re- 
sources of a scholarship and literary skill which their 
adversaries cannot choose but admire, however much 
they may deprecate the use to which it is put—has 
been to show that Jesus was a mere man, and that his 
person, teachings, and work are susceptible of a natural 
explanation. The aim of the scholars who have con- 
ducted the warfare on the Christian side—with equal 
learning and skill—has been to show that Christ was 
what he claimed to be, the Son of God, the God-man, 
the Saviour of the world. 

In the fight, which has been obstinate and _ bitter, 
we may say, I think, withont hesitation that the Chris- 
tian side have won the victory at every point. They 
have proved the historical character of the Gospel ree- 
ords on grounds of both internal and external criti- 
cism. They have so set forth the Christ of history in 


340 BVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


all the reality of that wonderful life of his, that the 
Son of God has been shown to be the only satisfactory 
explanation of the Son of Man; the Ecce Homo in- 
volving the Hece Deus. The simple historical facts are 
the highest proof. Here is a personality wholly 
unique, a manhood so true, so high, so noble, that we 
are not guilty of an exaggeration when we call it a 
“moral miracle.” It is out of the course of nature as 
it now exists in this sinful world, and can be accounted 
for only upon the hypothesis of an immediate divine 
intervention. ‘The man, the works, the teachings, all 
match each other, and afford a tout ensemble, the only 
explanation of which is the acceptance of his claim to 
divinity. It is one of the greatest achievements of 
modern apologetics that it has accomplished through 
Christian scholarship, preserved in a literature des- 
tined to have more than a passing value, what the art 
of the Middle Ages unsuccessfully attempted; it has 
given usa perfect picture of the God-man in the union 
of the ideal and the real. The Saviour as he is pre- 
sented, for example, in such a work as the Life of 
Christ, by Bernard Weiss,” is a possession forever, a 
consummate reproduction of theological art, if I may 
be allowed to use the expression. 

Not until recent times did the world possess this 
true and noble conception of the Christ of history. I 
wonder that any one who reads the Gospels with the 
aids put into his hands by recent scholarship can help 
being profoundly impressed with the divine character 
of Christ. It is interesting to see how far the unbe- 
lief of our time has gone in the recognition of the 
unique and typical manhood of Jesus, and in conced- 
ing the necessity of making a religious use of the ideal 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES, 341 


which Christ’s manhood furnishes. The unbelief of 
a century ago did not hesitate, at least through some 
of its representatives, to speak of Jesus as an impos- 
tor. Strauss represented the real Jesus whom he per- 
mitted to exist behind the glowing myths recorded in 
the Gospels as a very ordinary human being. But 
such a view is now impossible, except among the 
thoughtless and ignorant. Even the flippant Renan“ 
has felt the need of striking a higher key. It is much 
gained that the minimum of concession made by mod- 
ern unbelief is the recognition of Christ’s unique man- 
hood and its moral and religious importance, 

Now I do not doubt that the evidence for the truth 
of Christianity thus furnished has its important pre- 
liminary use in bringing men to the recognition of the 
evidence of experience, and inducing them to submit 
themselves to the conditions under which its possession 
is possible. In so far, it precedes the latter and is its 
essential prerequisite. Very many men have. been 
led along the pathway of this proof to the Christ him- 
self, as the story of Andrew and Philip brought Simon 
and Nathanael to the Saviour (John i. 40-51). Never- 
theless, I am inclined to think that if we are to secure 
the full value which belongs to the evidence of the 
Master’s person and work, we must approach it from 
the stand-point of the experimental evidence. At the 
best the historical evidence respecting the Christ, if we 
confine ourselves to it and seek no aid from Christian 
experience, gives us the picture of a Saviour who lived 
nearly nineteen centuries ago. It is a picture rather 
than a reality. Thus viewed, it is wonderful in its in- 
fluence; it has power to moye our deepest esthetic 
and even religious emotions. If a man has any spirit- 


342 HVIDENCE OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


ual susceptibility at all, he must be touched and thrilled 
by this marvelous personality and life. Still, when 
all is said, the evidence remains incomplete. Jesus is 
not a man like Socrates or Plato, whose person and 
work we value for what they bring to us through his- 
torical channels. Christ was the God-man on earth; 
but only on condition that he is the God-man now, 
exalted on the heavenly throne, the King of God’s 
kingdom, the Lord of every Christian heart. 

The evidence of Christian experience is based upon 
the knowledge of the living, glorified Christ, the pres- 
ent Saviour and Lord, known in and through the work 
he has wrought in the Christian’s life. The believer 
did, it is true, originally learn of him through the Gos- 
pels, and knew him rather as the Christ who lived and 
died than as the Christ who liveth for evermore (Rev. 
1. 18). Or if he thought of Christ as the present 
Lord, it was vaguely, with no certainty and definite- 
ness of conception. But this was only the prelude to 
the personal knowledge, a knowledge which became 
certain and satisfying in the initial experience of the 
Christian life. In that wonderful and never-to-be-for- 
gotten experience the Christian learned to know Christ 
as his personal Lord and Saviour, who comes to his 
soul through the Holy Spirit, bringing forgiveness 
and new life; and all his subsequent experience has 
served to deepen and strengthen his knowledge, and to 
make it more definite and real. Now let a man come 
to the proof derived from the historical aspect of 
the Saviour’s person and work with this knowledge, 
and the whole nature of the proof is changed. In the 
picture the living Lord is recognized. This earthly 
Jesus of the four Gospels is no longer a far-off being, 


— 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 343 


to be known only through the intellect; he is the 
Lord of the Christian’s present knowledge, known in 
the loving fellowship of the whole man. The fact of 
the correspondence between the two, trait for trait, 
deed for deed, gives the highest value and meaning to 
the historical evidence. The difficulties in the earthly 
life of Christ disappear. The wonder is, not that such 
a marvelous life was lived, and such a marvelous 
work done on earth, but rather that the Divine in him 
did not burst forth with a radiance so great as to com- 
pel even the enemies of religion to admit his claims. 

I spoke of the picture of the Christ given us in the 
modern Christian delineation of his person, contained 
in the better works on the Saviour’s life, as the union 
of the ideal and the real. But the statement was not 
wholly accurate. So long as we have to do merely 
with the historical elements furnished us by the Gospel 
writers, we get neither the real nor the ideal in their 
entirety, aid the union of the two is of necessity 1m- 
perfect. We see the actual man Jesus through the 
vista of the centuries, in circumstances in a measure 
foreign to us, and in surroundings far different from 
ours. We see the ideal, the higher element in him, 
struggling with the Rilidranead ‘id obstructions of the 
state o8 humiliation, in which he was, for the sake of 
his great work, for a little time lower than the angels. 
But aS is changed when we approach the subject from 
the side of the aeons of Christian experience. The 
knowledge which the Christian has of the Christ in 
glory, the Saviour who has revealed himself to his 
soul through the Holy Spirit, gives the missing ele- 
ments in the conception of the Christ that comes to us 
through the objective history. The Christ of nineteen 


344 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


hundred years ago is made real to the Christian through 
his personal acquaintance with the Saviour to-day, an 
acquaintance that reveals the same traits which we find 
delineated in the Gospels, though in more intimate 
knowledge. It is as when one reads the biography of a 
man he has known intimately, but with whom he has 
been acquainted only in his later life. The man as de- 
scribed in his childhood and young manhood is made 
real through this later knowledge and its correspondence 
with the picture painted in the memoir. I know the 
young man of the book as one who had not known 
the elder man of my acquaintance could not do. My 
knowledge at first-hand blends with the knowledge I 
get from the book in the unity and beauty of a single 
conception. 

So it is with the ideal element in the conception of 
the Saviour. The perfect manhood of Christ, which 
is the incarnation of Deity, is known to the Christian 
in the holy influences by which he has been regener- 
ated and carried forward in the Christian life. And 
if the manhood, still more the Deity, and with the 
manhood and the Deity, the saving offices of the God- 
man—his prophetical, priestly, and kingly ‘functions. 
This knowledge, transferred to the historical picture of 
Christ, gives it warmth and life and reality. Thus 
in the Saviour of the four Gospels we find the union of 
the real and the ideal, the Jesus of history and the 
Christ of faith.” 


LECTURE X. 
RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES: CONCLUSION. 


In this closing lecture I am to complete the examin- 
ation, begun when we last met, of the relation of the 
experimental evidence to the other evidences for the 
truth of Christianity. We turn now from the histort- 
cal proofs and the proof from the person and work of 
Christ, which is partly historical and partly rational, 
to the rational and practical evidences. 

First, then, we consider the rational. They have to 
do with Christianity as a system of truth. For the 
most part these evidences have occupied a prominent 
place in apologetics. But defenders of Christianity 
have not been wanting who have viewed them with 
disfavor and emphasized the historical evidences at 
their expense. Thus Dr. Chalmers finds fault with 
Leland for his rational arguments and disclaims all 
support in his own treatise from this species of rea- 
soning.’ But in spite of the contrary opinion of the 
eminent theologians who have taken this position, I 
cannot think we do right in repudiating this branch 
of the Christian evidences. That it has been abused is 
undoubtedly true. But this has also been the case with 
the historical evidence. The reason has been the same 
in both cases, namely, the failure to bring these proofs 
into vital connection with the proof from Christian 
experience. This I showed in the last lecture, so far as 


346 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the historical evidences are concerned. I now shall at- 
tempt to do the same in the case of the rational. 

V. I shall take up first what might be called the 
preliminary rational evidence, namely, that derived 
from the antecedent probability of a revelation. This 
appears, in one form or another, in all the systems of 
apologetics. It starts from the position of the theistic 
philosophy of religion, that there is a God, and this 
God such an One as stands in those relations to his 
rational creatures which render a revelation possible. 
Then it argues from human finiteness, and especially 
from human sin, the need of a revelation. In this 
way it seeks to overthrow the presumption against 
Christianity as a system of supernatural agencies, and 
to open the way for the more direct and positive evi- 
dence of its truth. 

The common objection is that such @ priort reason- 
ing begs the whole question at issue by assuming that 
apart from experience we are able to form a judg- 
ment as to whether the Supreme Being wonld meet 
the need of his finite and sinful creatures in this way.’ 
We have no right, it is claimed, to assert that God 
cannot supply man’s want in natural ways, without 
having recourse to supernatural or miraculous means. 

Now [am far from admitting that this objection is 
well-founded. The Christian—looking merely at the 
need of man, the inadequacy of natural religion, and 
the goodness and power of God—has a right to assert 
the reasonableness of a special or supernatural revela- 
tion. The position he takes is confirmed by the un- 
doubted fact that the expectation, and in part the as- 
surance, of the existence of such a revelation finds a 
place in all the ethnic religions. It is true that the 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. B47 


subject has often been too narrowly presented, the 
revelation in doctrine being emphasized at the expense 
of the revelation in redemptive power. But this de- 
fect is incidental to the statement of the argument, 
not essential, and it is capable of easy correction. I do 
not see how the way can be opened for the rational— 
or, indeed, for the historical and practical—evidence, 
unless this antecedent probability be granted. 

But the preliminary assent which is given to this 
argument by the man who is not yet a Christian, and 
who deals with the subject wholly as a matter of 
rational presumption, is very different from the accept- 
ance accorded to it by the Christian, who has felt in 
himself the force of the experimental evidence. The 
former has no such knowledge of his own need or of 
God's nature and power as can enable him satisfactor- 
ily to solve the problem of revelation. At most it will 
be a matter of likelihood, greater or less. He may as- 
sent cordially, and the assent may be sufficient to lead 
him to examine Christianity for himself, to see if it is 
indeed the revelation it claims to be. Yet there must 
always be an element of uncertainty, a helplessness in 
the presence of objections, which cannot be overcome. 

Very different, however, is the position of the Chris- 
tian, who approaches the subject from the side of his 
experience. He knows that God has made a revela- 
tion, for he has tested the fact by putting the alleged 
revelation to the trial. THe has thus gained such a 
knowledge of God, as well as of the depth and awful- 
ness of human need, as enables him to perceive the 
antecedent probability of God’s action in a way that 
would be impossible for the man who has had no such 
experience. He does not, indeed, undertake to limit 


348 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


God to any one particular mode of action. He is careful 
not to assert the necessity of a redemptive revelation 
in such a way as to make it a matter of debt rather 
than of grace. But in the light of what God has actual- 
ly done he is able to see what might be reasonably ex- 
pected of God, and he knows that the claim of antece- 
dent probability is well-founded. 

VI. This brings us to what is commonly called the 
“internal evidence” for the truth of Christianity. 
This is the evidence derived from the reasonableness or 
intrinsic excellence of the Christian system of doctrine. 
It is presented from various points of view. The 
truth of Christianity is argued from the correspond- 
ence of the Christian doctrines with the character of 
God as known through the natural revelation. The 
Jove and Fatherhood of God, the incarnation with its 
manifestation of the divine condescension, the person 
of the God-man, his saving work, and especially his 
atoning death upon the cross, the mission of the Spirit, 
the founding of the Christian church, the gracious gift 
of forgiveness and sonship to all who accept the Say- 
jour in faith, the work of sanctification, the coming 
triumph of the kingdom, the final overthrow of evil, 
the glories and happiness of the heavenly state—these 
are doctrines worthy of God. We cannot explain 
them as of human production. They bear upon them 
the marks of that perfect Being who has made himself 
known to us in nature. They can only be explained 
as a revelation from him. 

The reasonableness of the Christian doctrines is also 
evinced by their consonance with human need. They 
come to sinful man with the offer of a divine redemp- 
tion, pointing him to the finished work of a Saviour at 


RELATION TO OTHER EHVIDENCES., 349 


once divine and human, offering him God’s grace on 
the simplest conditions, setting before him a system of 
divine spiritual agencies by which he is enabled to be- 
come holy, happy, and serviceable in God’s kingdom 
here, and blessed in the eternal hereafter. In a word, 
there is presented to sinful man all the knowledge of 
the divine redemption requisite to his deliverance from 
sin and his attainment of the chief end of his exist- 
ence. It is just what man needs, and commends it- 
self as such to his reason. 

Moreover, the Christian system of doctrine evinces 
its reasonableness by its internal coherence and har- 
mony. The truths of revelation lend themselves with- 
out difficulty to the construction of an organic and 
well-ordered whole. <A “body of divinity” is the 
outcome of systematic dealing with Christian truth. 
One of the evidences of the truth of physical science 
is the fact that the truths and facts of nature are thus 
susceptible of harmonious and orderly arrangement. 
The so-called “natural systems” of botany and zodl- 
ogy are a proof, not to be despised, that the facts upon 
which those sciences are alleged to rest are actually 
existent ; the parts of the system stand to each other 
in such relations of coherence and harmony as to carry 
with them the evidence of their truth. A similar im- 
pression is made upon one who studies the Christian 
doctrines in the connection of the system of theology. 
IIere is not a mass of isolated dogmas and precepts, 
but an organic whole of knowledge, growing out of a 
single principle. Part matches part, and all the parts 
conspire to exhibit and attain the common end. 

And then these doctrines taken separately show 
their intrinsic rationality. They appeal to the reason 


000 EVIDENCE OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


of man as true. They are in accordance with his 
highest moral and spiritual intuitions. 

I am disposed to attach a very high value to this 
evidence of Christian truth, even in its preliminary 
use, before the light of the experimental evidence is 
thrown upon it. It is the fashion in our days to de- 
ery systematic theology and to depreciate doctrinal 
instruction, whether given from the pulpit or in the 
family and the school. We have reacted from the 
scholastic forms in which the Christian doctrines were 
presented while the influence of rationalism was still 
strongly felt, and the unthinking masses—and not a 
few who ought to be their guides rather than their 
followers—have raised the ery, “ Enough of doctrine ! 
Jet us have Christianity in its living form.” As if life 
could ever be divorced from doctrine, as if fact could 
be separated from truth! I need not stop to show how 
absurd this outery against doctrine is. No thoughtful 
and spiritual Christian can entertain it for a moment. 

I insist, then, on the importance of the evidence de- 
rived from the reasonableness of the Christian system 
of doctrine. In view of this fact I would urge that 
doctrinal preaching have a larger place in the minis- 
trations of the pulpit than is now commonly accorded 
to it. I would also urge the more general use of our 
better works on systematic divinity. Systems of the- 
ology have their value as a preparation for the per- 
sonal acceptance of Christ. In times like ours, when 
almost all the distinctive truths of Christianity are as- 
sailed and misrepresented, it is well that we can point 
the doubter and the inquirer to the scientific presenta- 
tions of theology which are the glory of our age. 
The difficulties respecting Christianity with which 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 351 


people are troubled are due in large part to gross ig- 
norance of what the Christian system is. These diffi- 
culties are aggravated by the fact that the church has 
become derelict in her duty, and not only has let doc- 
trinal preaching fall into neglect, but also—which is 
still worse—no longer gives the young the systematic 
doctrinal instruction that alone can enable them fully 
and fairly to understand what Christian truth is. 

A great deal is said in these days against the West- 
minster Catechism. I admit that it is not milk for 
babes, and also that its statements of doctrine are not 
in all respects abreast of the age. Dut until we get a 
better summary of Christian doctrine, let us use it. 
And then, let our pastors and religious instructors fol- 
low it up with systematic doctrinal teaching in such 
forms as are adapted to the needs of the young and 
will best imbue them with the truth. 

Men need to know what Christian doctrine is. The 
flippant infidel imposes upon our people by his mis- 
representations of Christianity. The doctrines of the 
Trinity, the atonement, and future punishment are 
made bugbears by the grossest misstatements. Let us 
open the windows and admit fresh air. The foolish 
outery against theology ought not to find the excuse it 
does in the sluggishness of the theologians themselves. 
Make theology better known. Express it in forms 
that will render it clear to the thought of our times. 
Let the people see its reasonableness. If we need to 
have the old confessions of faith revised, so asto make 
them intelligible to the masses, let us revise them.’ 
God’s truth is too good and great to be hidden under any 
bushel, however venerable and highly prized. There 
must be progress in theology as in other sciences. Not 


852 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


in new truth, for there is none ; but in new statements 
of truth. Not less of God’s truth but more of it, is 
what we want. 

Yet when all is said respecting the importance of 
the evidence from the reasonableness of the Christian 
system, it is not to be denied that this evidence is 
practically limited in its use when it is employed 
apart from the evidence of Christian experience. At 
most it presents Christianity to the intellect as a 
system of truth. It deals with notions rather than 
realities. It is as far from being the fact as a picture 
is from being the landscape which it represents. It 
has its great value for the young, for sincere doubters, 
for earnest seekers after the truth. Jt has its value in 
shutting the mouth of the infidel who attempts to re- 
fute Christianity by misrepresenting it. But there is 
a point beyond which it cannot go. As a matter of 
fact, there are many, and those by no means exclusively 
the active opponents of Christianity, to whom the dis- 
tinctive doctrines of Christianity are the chief objec- 
tions to it. They declare, and we cannot doubt that 
they are in many instances entirely honest, that they 
do not regard the Christian system of doctrine as 
reasonable. It does not seem to them correspondent 
with the character of God. It does not meet human 
need. It is not self-consistent. Above all, it does 
not commend itself to their moral and spiritual intui- 
tions. 

The attempt has been made to meet this difficulty 
by declaring that the more distinctive Christian doe- 
trines, such as those of the Trinity, regeneration, the 
atonement, and the like, are mysteries—not indeed 
contrary to reason but above reason. A distinction 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 353 


which originated among the German Lutheran theo- 
logians of the seventeenth century, has been made 
between the artecule miati and the articuli puri,‘ the 
former those doctrines of revelation which are also to 
a greater or less extent truths of natural religion, such 
as the doctrines of God, sin, etc., and the latter the 
doctrines belonging exclusively to revelation. But 
such distinctions fail to afford relief. The argument 
fails, if the distinctiveiy Christian doctrines are to be 
withdrawn from the judgment of the reason. It be- 
comes impossible to answer the opponent who declares 
that they are unreasonable. 

From the point of view of these lectures, and in the 
light of the evidence of Christian experience, it is not 
difficult to explain the limitations of the proof from 
the reasonableness of the Christian system. It cannot 
commend itself to the unconverted man per se. To a 
certain extent the anima naturaliter Christiana in 
him may respond to it. If he allows himself to yield 
to this influence, he may have a preliminary evidence 
of the truth of Christianity which, in connection with 
the other probable evidences, will serve to lead him to 
make personal trial. But, as we have seen,’ the facts 
of Christianity must be unintelligible in their true na- 
ture to the unconverted man, and the doctrines which 
attempt to convey an impression of these facts must 
partake of the same unintelligibility. Ifa man is in- 
different to the influences of the divine Spirit working 
in his heart or actually turns from it, the case is 
aggravated ; the distinctive doctrines of the Christian 
system are not only unintelligible but repugnant and 
absurd. You cannot make such a man, while he 
remains in this state, see the reasonableness of the 

23 


354 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Christian truths.° He must have a Christian experi- 
ence and a divine illumination before this result can 
be brought about. I do not deny the possibility of a 
theologia irregenitorum,' but I assert that it will not 
and cannot be a Christian theology ; inevitably it will 
be some form of rationalism.° 

But let a man be in possession of the evidence of 
Christian experience, and the whole state of things is 
altered. Then the proof from the reasonableness of 
the Christian system of doctrine becomes full and con- 
vincing. The Christian knows of no articuls purd 
which are above reason in the sense that reason does 
not judge and approve them. Ne does, indeed, ad- 
mit that the distinctive doctrines of Christianity are 
mysterious,’ but so are the doctrines of natural relig- 
ion, and mysteriousness is not opposed to reasonable- 
ness. The illuminated reason of the Christian finds 
the Christian doctrines wholly rational. As has been 
truly said by one of the ablest of our modern writers 
upon the evidences, ‘‘ Christianity does not charge 
reason itself, but wnregenerate reason, with incapacity 
to discern the things of the Spirit. Regenerated 
reason finds nothing contradictory to itself, or uncon- 
genial, in the Christian system.” The Christian 
finds the truths of Christian theology consonant with 
the character of God, agreeable to the needs of men, 
self-consistent and harmonious, accordant with the 
highest moral and spiritual principles. It will be un- 
derstood that in saying this Iam not speaking of the 
scholastic, doctrinal, or metaphysical questions which 
divide the sects, but of the great Gospel doctrines 
accepted by all evangelical Christians. 

The ground of this hearty acceptance of the internal 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 355 


evidence is manifest. He who comes to the proof 
already in possession of the evidence of Christian ex- 
perience knows the facts which the doctrines describe. 
His knowledge is not notional but real. He is not 
dealing with abstractions but with facts. In declaring 
the Christian doctrines reasonable he is not comparing 
notion with notion in his mind, or subjecting notions 
to some arbitrary mental standard ; he is verifying the 
notion by a comparison with the reality. He declares 
the doctrine to be reasonable because it corresponds to 
the fact. 

It is just at this point that our modern apologetical 
science makes its most marked advance upon the old 
evidences. As we have had occasion more than once 
to notice, the apologetics that prevailed at the begin- 
ning of the present century—deistic and rationalistic, 
in spite of its long struggle with deism and rationalism 
—was cautious of admitting the exercise of reason in 
the judgment of the truth of the Christian revelation.” 
It assigned to reason a legitimate sphere and function 
in judging and accrediting the credentials of the re- 
demptive revelation, which it regarded chiefly as a 
system of doctrine. But when this was done, it de- 
clared that it was the duty of reason to bow before 
the divine authority and to accept the contents of the 
revelation upon the zpse diwit of the divine Author. It 
was said that the truths of revelation are not contrary 
to reason but above reason. Thus no attempt could be 
made to exhibit the reasonableness of the Christian 
doctrines themselves; or if this was done to a certain 
extent with those doctrines which revelation holds in 
common with natural religion, yet the Christian mys- 
teries, the artzcult puri, were placed in a separate cate- 


356 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


gory as dogmas to be accepted merely upon the au- 
thority of revelation, without endeavoring to reconcile 
them to our reason. 

Modern apologetical science has discovered the de- 
fect of the old position and has correctedit. Or rather 
it has gone back to the still older apologetics of the 
Puritan theologians. We make no such distinction 
now as used to be made, between the credentials of 
revelation and the revelation itself, that is, between its 
form and its contents. We recognize the fact that it 
is utterly impossible to separate the two. We cannot 
prove the revelation by miracles and prophecy, and then 
be assured co zpso of the truth of all its doctrines. 
Men have but one organ of knowledge, and they can 
accept nothing as true that does not conform to its 
criteria. Reason is just as needful in judging of the 
contents of revelation as of its form. If revelation 
contradicted our reason, we could not accept it. The 
great thing is to use our reason aright, to adapt it to 
the sphere of knowledge with which we are concerned. 


The old rationalism was faulty, not in that it made~ 


reason the organ by which we judge of the claims of 
revelation, but in that it supposed that reason could 
evolve from itself all the facts with which it has to 
do; in other words, in that it did not look to experience 
for the facts. Thus it made quick work of all that is 
distinctive in Christianity. But this is the abuse of 
reason, not its use. We need not fly to the other ex- 
treme and abjure the use of our reason altogether. 
What we need as rational beings to do, is to use our 
reason aright.” 

Our modern theology, taking this middle and rational 
course, has come to see that it is possible so to use our 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. aw 


reason upon the contents of Christian truth as to 
show that the doctrines of Christianity embody the 
highest reason and give us that final truth in which the 
human mind can rest satisfied. But in order to do this 
fully and satisfactorily, we must have the experience 
upon which Christian doctrine is based. We must 
know the great facts. Whatever is real is in the high- 
est sense reasonable, even though the guomodo of it 
may be a mystery. 

Let us look, by way of illustration, at two of the 
more important Christian doctrines. It has been de- 
clared that the doctrine of the Trinity isa mere dogma, 
to be received because it is taught by revelation. But 
this kind of reasoning brought about the Unitarian de- 
fection. Asa matter of fact, the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity is to the Christian who knows how to use his experi- 
ence aright, the most reasonable of all the scriptural 
doctrines, since it is the deepest and most essential. In 
the believer’s religious life the sacred Three—Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost—are known directly and person- 
ally. ‘They are the fundamental facts of all the experi- 
ence of the regenerate soul. They are the fixed lights in 
the spiritual firmament. The doctrine which confirms 
and formulates this fact of experience is in the highest 
sense reasonable. It is as reasonable as those teachings 
of astronomy which confirm our daily knowledge of sun 
and moon and stars. True, the doctrine is a mystery. 
But what fact is not a mystery? If we found no mys- 
teries reasonable, our rational knowledge would be lim- 
ited enough.” 

Or take the doctrine of the atonement. This, as per- 
haps no other doctrine of the Christian system, seems 
to the unconverted man lacking in reason, because it 


358 HVIDEHNCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


has to do with an experience that none can comprehend 
save those who have passed through it. Even those 
Christians who have not learned to make a theological 
use of their inward life find trouble with it. That the 
God-man should be our substitute and perform for us 
the great vicarious sacrifice on the basis of which the 
sinner’s guilt is forgiven, seems strange and incom- 
prehensible. We need not wonder at this. From 
the first days of Christianity Christ crucified has been 
to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks fool- 
ishness (1 Cor. i. 23). Only to the Christian, who is 
alive to the fulness of the treasure within, can he be 
the power of God and the wisdom of God. We try 
to explain the atonement according to the principles of 
ordinary human experience and we inevitably fail, get- 
ting perhaps no farther than some meagre moral in- 
fluence theory. But he who in his own inward life 
has come in contact with the actual power of the atone- 
ment, who has felt himself forgiven and reinstated in 
God’s favor on the ground of the Saviour’s work, who 
knows that it is possible to be pardoned for another’s 
sake, such an one finds the great Christian doctrine in 
the fullest sense reasonable.” 

VII. Still another rational argument, closely con- 
nected with the two already mentioned, is derived from 
the answer which Christianity gives to the great fun- 
damental questions of existence; in other words, the 
argument derived from Christianity as a philosophy. 
Let us see in what relation the evidence of Christian 
experience stands to this form of rational proof. 

The object of philosophy is to disclose to us the first 
causes of things, enabling us to bring all knowledge 
into the unity of a system, governed by a single prin- 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 359 


ciple. A philosophy is a rational explanation of the 
universe in its principles. Now undoubtedly Christi- 
anity is far more than a philosophy. It is practical. 
It deals primarily with the will, and involves the feel- 
ings as wellas the intellect. Yet so far as Christianity 
involves a knowledge concerning thie first principles of 
the universe, it furnishes a philosophy. Its doctrines 
of God, of the Trinity, of creation, of man, answer the 
ontological and cosmological questions of philosophy. 
Its doctrines of sin, the fall, the atonement, redemp- 
tion, answer the moral questions. Its doctrine of the 
redemptive kingdom of God furnishes the teleological 
solution of the world’s problem. 

The history of philosophy has a sad and discourag- 
ing side to it. The great systems have followed each 
other in monotonous succession, each flourishing for a 
time, only to fall into decadence and give place to the 
next. One of the most popular modern writers on the 
history of philosophy—I refer to George Henry Lewes 
—has said: ‘ Every day the conviction gains strength 
that philosophy is condemned, by the very nature of 
its impulses, to wander forever in one tortuous laby- 
rinth, within whose circumscribed and winding spaces 
weary thinkers are continually finding themselves in 
the trodden tracks of predecessors, who, they know, 
could find no exit. Philosophy has been ever in 
movement, but the movement has been circular; and 
this fact is thrown into stronger relief by contrast 
with the linear progress of science.” ‘* Accordingly, this 
able author proceeds to write a history, the object of 
which is to show “how and why the interest in phi- 
losophy has become purely historical.” ” 

There seems to be a certain amount of truth in 


360. HVIDENCEH OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


Lewes’s position. There is something lacking in all 
the philosophies. None of them keep the promise 
with which they begin. Their inherent weakness is 
shown in their religious aspects, in the uncertainty and 
unsatisfactory nature of the results they attain in the 
highest department of human thonght. But Christi- 
anity supplies us with the elements which the philoso- 
phies lack, with the key by which their locked doors 
are opened.” 

Viewed simply asa theory of existence, a Weltan- 
schauwng, Christianity is immeasurably superior to any 
of the non-Christian philosophies. It is interesting 
to note how those early Christian Fathers who had 
come under the influence of the Greek, and especially 
the Platonic, philosophy—men like Justin Martyr 
and Clement of Alexandria—emphasize this aspect of 
Christianity. The heathen philosophy had sharpened 
their desire for the final truth, but had failed to satisfy 
it. Christianity came to them with the very help 
they needed. 

Our modern apologetics is coming more and more to 
realize the power of this argument. The time has 
passed for Christianity to hide itself behind the shel- 
ter of authority, even though the authority be that of 
a divine revelation. If it is true, or rather, since it is 
true, let it stand out in the light and take its place 
alongside of the other philosophies. We are not 
afraid that it will suffer by the rivalry. It is not so 
weak as to need artificial protection. We believe that 
its truth is the key to all truth. Amidst the theories 
and schemes of the philosophers let this take its 
chance asatheory. Let it stand on its own merits. 
We ask only that it be fairly tried. It has stood the 


RHLATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 861 


storms and strains of nearly nineteen centuries. It 
has seen hundreds of philosophical systems arise and 
fall. We believe that it will stand the storms of 
nineteen centuries more, if the present order of things 
should last so long. 

But, as I said a moment ago, Christianity is not 
merely a philosophy. Hegel represented religion and 
philosophy as the same.” But this is not the case. 
Religion is practical as well as theoretical, and theo- 
retical because practical. Philosophy is wholly theo- 
retical. Now in order that a man may understand 
Christianity as a philosophy, he must know it practi- 
eally. If any man willeth to do God’s will he shall know 
of the doctrine; that is the law in this highest sphere 
of knowledge. The evidence of Christian experience 
is the precondition of the full use and appreciation of 
the evidence derived from Christianity viewed as a 
philosophy. Pico of Mirandola said: ‘ Philosophia 
veritatem queerit, theologia invenit, religio possidet.” * 
We want here the union of the three, and we need 
especially to make sure of the possession. Let us re- 
verse the order, and with religion in possession, we 
may be sure that theology and philosophy will like- 
wise possess the truth. 

It is the man who knows the Father, the Christ, and 
the Holy Spirit in his own experience, who has been 
regenerated and is a partaker of eternal life, who is 
living in the kingdom of God,—it is this man who has 
found his bearings in the universe and possesses a sat- 
isfactory solution of its profoundest problems. He 
has discovered the one principle by which all things 
can be reduced to the unity of a harmonious sys- 
tem. In Jesus Christ, by whom and to whom are 


362 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


all things, he has attained the true centre of the or- 
ganism of truth and knows how to bring all truth 
into its proper relations. As time goes on, we shall 
come more and more to recognize this fact and to give 
it its true theoretical significance.” 

VIII. The last of the rational arguments which I 
shall mention here is that derived from the compari- 
son of Christianity with the other religions of man- 
kind. This I shall treat very briefly.” It needs only 
a superficial knowledge of the faiths of men as repre- 
sented in the ethnic religions to show the immense 
superiority of Christianity. The careful and pains- 
taking study to which these faiths have been subjected 
in modern times has not resulted in changing this 
verdict. We gladly recognize the elements of truth 
which all the ethnic systems contain, and see in them 
the proof that God has not deserted the heathen, but 
has been educating them for the reception of his re- 
demptive revelation. We do not hesitate to admit that 
many of the moral precepts and spiritual principles 
once thought peculiar to Christianity are to be found 
in the sacred books of the ethnic religions. But when 
all is said, we ask only that Christianity should be 
placed alongside of these systems, assured that its im- 
mense moral and spiritual superiority must manifest 
itself to every candid mind. 

For—to say nothing of the fact that the truth of the 
non-Christian religions is embedded in a setting of er- 
ror—it is not the individual precepts and doctrines 
which make up Christianity. It is a religion of power 
rather than of word. It aims at the redemption of 
men from sin and is based upon a system of divine 
supernatural acts and agencies by which this redemp- 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 363 


tion is effected. It is the religion of redemption 
through a Saviour at once divine and human—in a 
word, the religion of Christ. It is thus distinguished 
from all other religions, and it manifests its truth not 
only by its appeal to the intellect and to the universal 
sense of need, but also by its actual accomplishment 
of redemption. A superficial comparison may seem to 
find in some forms of heathen religion the same re- 
demptive principles. But we have but to make the 
comparison in details to see how fallacious this view is. 
How utterly different, for example, is Buddhism, the 
religion which shares with Christianity the claim to 
be a religion of redemption. Contrast the heaven of 
the Christian, with its eternal blessedness in commu- 
nion with God and Christ, its consummation and 
abundance of life, and the Nirvana of the Buddhist. 
Contrast the asceticism of the Buddhistic withdrawal 
from the world and the active service of the Christian 
in the kingdom of God. Contrast Gautama Buddha 
and Jesus the Christ.” 

But strong as this argument is, even to the unpre- 
judiced unbeliever, it finds its full strength only when 
it has been preceded by the evidence of Christian ex- 
perience. For to know Christianity at its full worth 
it must be known from the inside. The man who 
stands in the midst of its supernatural world of divine 
realities, who has experienced in his own person its re- 
demptive power, knows that it differs from the hea- 
then religions as reality from appearance, as truth from 
error, as light from darkness. ‘In Cicero and Plato 
and other such writers,” said Augustin, ‘I meet with 
many things acutely said, and things that excite a cer- 
tain warmth of emotion, but in none of them do I find 


364 HVIDENCH OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


these words, ‘ Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” ** That was 
the utterance of a Christian heart which had experi- 
enced for itself the power of Christ. 

IX. We come now to the first branch of the practi- 
cal evidence, namely, that which is derived from the 
spread and transforming power of Christianity in the 
world. It remains for us to examine this, and the re- 
lation in which the evidence of Christian experience 
stands to it. There is a sense in which this itself may 
be regarded as an evidence from experience, since it 
has to do with the actual working of Christianity as a 
system of redemptive powers. But it is concerned not 
with the inward but with the outward effects of these 
redemptive agencies, and therefore we are right in 
treating it separately. 

Our Saviour described the kingdom of God as like 
the leaven which is hidden in the meal and leavens 
the whole; or like the seed which grows up throngh 
the stages of blade and ear to the full corn in the ear 
(Matt. xiii. 33; Mark iv. 28). The truth he uttered 
as a prophecy furnishes in its fulfilment—so far as the 
world has gone in fulfilling it—a very powerful and 
convincing argument for the truth of Christianity. 

Let us look at the argument in its main outlines. 
From the feeble beginnings of the Christian church, 
at the time it received the outpouring of the Spirit on 
_ the day of Pentecost, its progress has been straight 
forward. Before the death of the apostles it had 
gained a foothold in every important part of the Ro- 
man Empire, especially in the great cities. By the 
beginning of the fourth century its period of perse- 
cution came to an end, and it conquered the proud 


RHLATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 365 


Empire itself, coming into possession of the imperial 
power in the person of Constantine. From that time 
to this its numbers have steadily increased, no century 
failing to mark an advance except the thirteenth, when 
the failure of the Crusades gave over a large Christian 
territory to the Mohammedans. At present a third of 
the population of the globe is Christian, and the work 
of increase is going steadily forward.” 

During the earlier centuries this advance was made 
in the teeth of the most bitter opposition. Christian- 
ity in itself was repugnant to the feelings and beliefs 
of the ancient heathen world. Its requirements were 
hard and exacting. It set up a claim of independence 
which brought it into inevitable antagonism to the 
civil government. Its disciples were subjected to a 
systematic oppression and persecution the like of 
which the world never saw. The means which it em- 
ployed were not those of force but purely spiritual. 
Mohammedanism, its most powerful modern rival, 
pushed its conquering way by the sword. Christian- 
ity, at least in the earlier centuries, availed itself of no 
such means. When a vessel advances against current, 
tide, and wind, the conclusion is that it is propelled by 
an inward power. We judge the same of Christianity. 
We can account for the progress of Christianity, against 
obstacles and without outward aids, only upon the as- 
sumption that a divine power was working within. 

But Christianity has not only increased numerically ; 
it has also wrought the greatest moral and spiritual 
changes. It has transformed religion, giving the world 
in the place of the heathen systems, with their absurdi- 
ties and falsehoods and immoralities, the pure faith of 
Christ, which, even though it were a fable, would be 


3066 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


the most beautiful and inspiring fable the world has 
ever known. It has given a new civilization to a third 
of the world. Under its influence society has assumed 
anew form. The rights of personality have become 
recognized. Constitutional government has been es- 
tablished. Jurisprudence has been reformed. Class 
distinctions have been broken down. Slavery has 
been abolished. The brotherhood of nations is begin- 
ning to be recognized. Charitable institutions have 
been established. The position of woman has been 
elevated. The rights of children have been recog- 
nized. The Christian home has been evolved. Com- 
merce and trade have been placed upon a new and 
ethically higher basis. Literature, science, philosophy, 
art, have sprung into a grander life. Ina word, our 
many-sided modern civilization, with its immense su- 
periority over that of the heathen and of ancient times, 
is the effect of Christianity. 

To-day Christianity is the power which is moulding 
the destinies of the world. The Christian ‘nations are 
in the ascendant. Just in proportion to the purity of 
Christianity as it exists in the various nations of 
Christendom is the influence they are exerting upon 
the world’s destiny. The future of the world seems 
to be in the hands of the three great Protestant 
powers—England, Germany, and the United States. 
The old promise is being fulfilled; the followers of 
the true God are inheriting the world. 

In a hasty sketch like this it is not needful to pre- 
sent the seamy side of the picture. But I have not 
forgotten it. My opinion is that the impression made 
by the facts I have hinted at would be increased rather 
than diminished by a fair statement of all the facts 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 367 


which make for the other side. Looking at the mat- 
ter in the large, we can have no question that Chris- 
tianity has been from the first certain of its universal 
conquest. No other religion can vie with it. There 
is no likelihood that any religion will ever appear to 
enter into rivalry with it. The modern attempts to 
provide a substitute for Christianity are ludicrously 
inadequate. Japan, in spite of all love for its ancient 
religions and all openness of mind to receive our west- 
ern infidelity, is surely and steadily drifting into the 
acceptance of Christianity ; or, I might more truly say, 
is being carried toward that acceptance by the opera- 
tion of an inevitable power. 

Now these facts form a powerful argument. Here 
is Christianity on trial, vindicating its truth by its 
fruits. The facts are manifest. The unbeliever sees 
them as truly as the Christian. Deny them he can- 
not. ‘To explain them in any other way than upon the 
assumption that Christianity is divine, is, to say the 
least, a difficult matter, with regard to which unbe- 
lievers are at cross-purposes among themselves. ‘T'ri- 
umphant Christianity carries its evidence on its face. 

I donot doubt that this argument has its independent 
force. Like the other historical and rational proofs, it 
also is in a sense presupposed by the evidence of Chris- 
tian experience. Nevertheless, its full power can be 
realized only by one who brings to its understanding 
the evidence of the inward life. As the individual 
man is a microcosm, so the individual Christian is a 
mirror in which the causal agency and progress of 
Christianity are reflected in miniature. The seed of 
the divine life, implanted in the heart, in its growth 
to the perfect flower of Christian manhood is a reca- 


868 HVIDENCE OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


pitulation of the growth of Christianity in the world. 
Just as the development of the embryo is an abridged 
history of the evolution of the species, so it is here. 
The Christian who has had the divine life working in 
himself has the key to the working of the same divine 
power in the world.” Ile recognizes the supernatural 
leaven at work. ‘The realities of the kingdom are the 
facts of his inner life, and they are the hidden but po- 
tent realities of this external process. Because the 
kingdom of God is within him, he knows how rightly 
to interpret the movement of the kingdom of God 
without. Accordingly, the true Christian is an opti- 
mist. He does not and cannot doubt the success of 
Christianity. The power that is working in the world, 
is to him no blind, unconscious power ; it is the Christ 
himself, doing his Father’s work through the Holy 
Spirit. He knows from what he has himself expe- 
rienced that the agencies which are working for us are 
greater than those which are arrayed against us. 

There is one more practical argument, which I leave 
untouched. It is that derived from the outward work- 
ing of Christianity in the individual. Of its transcen- 
dent importance I am not forgetful. But it is so 
closely related to the evidence of Christian experience, 
that to attempt to show the relation of the two is need- 
less: 

We are thus brought to the conclusion of this exam- 
ination of the relation of the evidence from experi- 
ence to the other evidences of Christianity. What 
I have tried to show is that the experimental evi- 
dence is the most important and fundamental of all 
the proofs, the real centre and ruling principle of the 
organism of evidences, I have not asserted that it 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 369 


necessarily comes first in time, though in many cases 
there is no thought of evidences until the Christian 
life has been already entered. There is a true sense, 
which I have tried duly to set forth, in which the ex- 
ternal evidences, historical, rational, and practical, lead 
up to the experimental, which is their crown and con- 
summation. But the real power and value of the evi- 
dences depend upon the evidence of experience. 


So we come to the conclusion of this course of lec- 
tures. In taking leave of you let me say a few words 
by way of practical application. 

In presenting the snbject which we have discussed 
I have not been unmindful of the scientific aspects 
of Christian apologetics. I believe that science has 
a most important relation to life. Clear and orderly 
thought is the necessary precondition of all effective 
action. My aim has been to show that the evidence 
of experience has the highest scientific value, and that 
if apologetics is to take its place as a science among the 
sciences, full justice must be done to this, its funda- 
mental form. 

But my purpose has been practical as well as sci- 
entific, and practical because scientific. Theologians 
have wavered as to the theological rubric under which 
apologetics should be classified.” Some have assigned it 
to fundamental theology, some to systematic theology, 
some to practical theology. For my own part, I am 
not sure that it belongs wholly to any of these three 
departments. The system of the theological disciplines 
is an organism, and, like all organisms, incapable of 
that sharp separation and distinction which our logic 
is too often inclined to demand of it. At all events, 

24 


370 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


while consenting on the whole to the classification 
which places apologetics in fundamental theology, I 
am sure that it has a practical side. 

It is this side which has been uppermost in my mind 
in all the discussions—many of them perhaps too 
abstract and philosophical—through which we have 
passed. My hope has been, not so much that I might 
make some worthy contribution to theological science, 
though I trust [have not fallen entirely short in that 
respect. Rather I have been thinking chiefly of you 
young men, who are so soon to enter upon the work of 
the Christian ministry, and have hoped that I might in 
some degree meet your needs, which, though not un- 
concerned with science, will be practical rather than 
scientific. 

The generation in which you are to do your best 
labor is to be in many respects different from that to 
which we belong who are now bearing the burden and 
heat of the day. The last thirty years have been a 
time of struggle and difficulty in the church of Christ. 
Many influences have conspired to hinder the progress 
of the Master’s kingdom. Though the church has in- 
creased in numbers and in strength, yet the opposition 
to Christianity has more than kept pace with the 
church’s growth. The vast advance in the physical 
sciences and in all material things, which our age has 
witnessed, has been fruitful in the production of un- 
belief. There have been times when it has seemed as 
if Christianity were losing ground. 

But, thank God, the tide has turned. The move- 
ment is now in the opposite direction. The fight 
has been a gallant one. An apologetical literature of 
enormous dimensions shows how earnest, and on the 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 371 


whole successful, has been the defence of the great 
truths of theism and Christianity. You are tired of 
hearing about the “ conflict between science and relig- 
ion;” but we of the older generation know that while 
true science and religion never come into conflict, a 
warfare has been going on between scientific unbe- 
levers and Christians than which the world has not 
seen a fiercer since the days of English deism and 
German rationalism. But, as I said, thank God, the 
fight is about over—at least so far as the main action 
is concerned—and the victory is on the side of him 
who in every age of his church leads the Christian 
hosts to battle and gives them the mastery over his 
and their foes. The signs of the times are on the side 
of triumphant Christianity. But we who have been in 
the fight have not escaped without wounds. We have 
had trials to our faith which are not known in more 
peaceful times. Some of us know what it is to have 
had the battle fought out on the field of our own souls, 
where our very heart’s-blood hag been spilt. 

Well, I believe a better time is coming for you. I 
hope and believe you are about to enter into the peace- 
ful inheritance of the generation of religious struggle 
through which the church has been passing. But you 
must not look for complete freedom from conflict. 
There is no discharge in this war, except that which 
comes when the warrior passes from the church mil- 
itant to the church triumphant. The Saviour came 
not to send peace but a sword (Matt. x. 34). You 
will still have the old foes to confront, though they 
will appear in new guise. How are you going to meet 
the assaults which will be made upon Christianity in 
your day? First of all, you will have your own faith 


312 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN HXPERIENCE. 


to keep untarnished. Then you will have to strength- 
en in the faith the Christian people who are committed 
to your charge. You must guide the children of the 
church into the truth. Doubters will come to you for 
help. The opponents of Christianity will level their 
weapons against you and try the temper of your armor. 
How are you going to do the work which will thus be 
required of you 4 

From the nature of the case the minister’s work 
must be largely apologetical. Unless he can content 
himself to preach a Gospel of authority, he must defend 
the truth. He is set for its defence. He will thus 
maintain the truth in the pulpit. The most successful 
preachers in all ages have been those through whose 
presentation of the Gospel has runathread of constant 
defence. This was the case with our Lord himself. 
If you examine his discourses as they are recorded in 
the Gospel of St. John, you will be struck with the 
extent to which he put himself upon the level of his 
disciples and his adversaries, and argued the truth 
with them. fPaul, the apostle to the Gentiles, never 
forgot that he was set for the maintenance and defence 
of the faith. His epistles to the Romans and the 
Galatians are apologetical throughout, especially in de- 
fence of the great doctrines of grace. It would be an 
interesting task, if the time and opportunity were given 
me, to examine the evidences by which the scriptural 
authors defend the Christian system. You would be 
surprised—if your attention has never been called to it 
before—to find to what an extent it is possible to draw 
from the Bible a system of apologetics which will 
stand the test even of modern times. For, as I said 
a moment ago, the old foes of Christianity are still 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 373 


at work, and the modern enemies of our faith are new 
only in their dress. If you will succeed, you must in 
your preaching keep in mind the fact that you have 
to defend the truth, and so to commend it to the hear- 
ers God has given you. 

So in your pastoral work. If you are to be good pas- 
tors, who will not feel your duty done when you have 
made your yearly round of pastoral visits, pastors upon 
whose souls the eternal welfare of your people is a sa- 
ered charge, you will find weak faith to be strengthen- 
ed, unintelligent faith to be enlightened, seekers after 
truth to be brought to faith, perplexed and wandering 
souls to be led into the truth, enemies of the truth to 
be confuted. It may be that in your own souls doubts 
will arise which you will need to meet with a defence 
to yourself of the truths which you preach to others. 

Now much will depend upon your system of de- 
fence. Just as no minister can preach the Gospel suc- 
cessfully without a theology, no minister can do his 
work as a defender of Christianity without a system of 
apologetics. It may be in a book, it may not. That is 
a matter of minor importance. I do not think the best 
systems of divinity are in books, though as a teacher 
of theology I have a high estimate of the published 
systems. So you may never put your system of evi- 
dence into written form, and you may never find a trea- 
tise which will give you just what you need. But you 
must have a system, if you will do the work God has 
given you to do; and the question is, Shall it be a good 
system, or an imperfect and inadequate one ¢ 

If the man of God isto be perfect, thoroughly fur- 
nished unto all good works (2 Tim. iii. 17), he will not 
be satisfied with guerrilla warfare in the defence of 


374 HVIDENCE OF OHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Christianity. He will need to be able to give the reason 
for the faith that is in him wisely and intelligently, so 
that he may convince and convert souls, and build them 
up in Christlike living. Like the good physician, he 
must be so grounded in the principles of his art that he 
will know how to prescribe in every case the right treat- 
ment and medicine. You cannot afford to enter the 
ministry unsettled upon this subject. If you do, you will 
make Christianity ridiculous and foster the prejudice 
that it rests not upon reason but upon mere imagina- 
tion. Alas, how many ministers there are who do more 
harm to Christianity by their defence of it than many 
of its enemies do by their open assaults ! 

It has been my hope throughout these lectures that 
I might be of some aid to you in forming your apolo- 
getical system. It seems to me that we are at this 
time in great need of reconstruction in this department 
of theological science. What we need to ask ourselves 
is, What is the great fundamental evidence upon which 
our Christian faith rests, and how can this be so brought 
into relation to the other evidences that they may be 
most effective in strengthening faith and overthrowing 
unbelief ? 

The answer to this question I have tried to give. 
The basal evidence of Christianity must be that which 
is common to all Christians, and which even the Chris- 
tian who has made the greatest advance in theological 
and philosophical scholarship primarily relies upon. 
It is useless to say that the evidence which satisfies 
ourselves is not the evidence we are to use when we 
confront the assaults of the adversary, or meet the 
difficulties and questionings of the seeker after truth. 
The alternative is simple, and we must accept one side 


‘ 
: 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. are 


or the other: either the inward certainty of the Chris- 
tian, the certainty which makes him ready, if need be, 
to suffer death rather than give up his Christian be- 
lief, is rational, or it is irrational; either it carries evi- 
dence with it or it does not. If it does not, if it is mere- 
ly an irrational conviction, founded upon no basis of 
reason, as the unbeliever declares, then let us’ have 
done with it; the sooner we relinguish it, the better. 
As reasonable men we cannot afford to found our faith 
upon irrational convictions. But if the certainty of 
the Christian has a foundation that satisfies the pro- 
foundest cravings of his reason, if it involves a proof 
compared with which all other proofs are weak, then 
let him have the courage of his convictions, and let 
him vindicate the scientific value of this evidence by 
putting it to the forefront. 

I know what the chief objection is, and have already 
tried to meet it. It is said that the proof which is 
satisfactory to us is not satisfactory to the opponents 
of Christianity. But this objection has no real weight. 
As a matter of fact, no proof is satisfactory to the op- 
ponents of Christiamty. Do we think that we con- 
vince them with our external proofs, historical, ration- 
al, and practical? If so, let us open our eyes and 
abandon the fond delusion. They have an answer, to 
them satisfactory, to all our evidences, and they re- 
gard us as weak and prejudiced. How many men, 
think you, who in their hearts were set against Chris- 
tian truth, were ever converted by the old evidence 
from miracles and prophecy? None. The truth is, 
there is a moral difficulty in the way of the acceptance 
of Christianity by its opponents. They wz// not come 
unto Christ that they might have life (John v. 40). 


376 HVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


They approach the subject with a prejudice which 
mere argument cannot overcome.” 

But how shall we deal best with them—by giving 
them the objective evidence, when they challenge us 
for our proof, or by giving them the true proof upon 
which our certainty as Christians rests, the evidence 
of experience? Which method will be most likely to 
gain their respect ? Which to lead them to make that 
surrender of their will which is the great end of all 
Christian defence and persuasion? What these men 
want to know, so far as they are honest in their require- 
ment, 1s what is the ground upon which we accept 
Christianity. We are much more likely to help them 
by perfect honesty than by a partial reserve. We 
need to make them see that our faith in its deepest 
roots is, to us at least, a rational faith. Such a faith is 
contagious. We may thus bring them to God. If, 
on the other hand, the objectors are not honest, still 
let them know the truth, and let them understand that 
so long as they refuse to follow the method which Christ 
has prescribed for the trial of Christianity, they are 
doing a wrong to their own souls. 

If this be true with respect to the opponents of 
Christianity, much more with respect to the earnest 
inquirer after truth, and the young who are already 
under Christian instruction. We need to take them 
into our confidence, to let them know the real and in- 
most grounds of our faith. Let us follow the method 
of nature in the Christian sphere. Ninety-nine out of 
every hundred of those who become Christians are 
brought to the Saviour by the example and influence of 
other Christians. What happens thus, without intent 
on our part, by a law of man’s religious being, is.a safe 


RELATION TO OTHER EVIDENCES. 377 


rule for our intentional and deliberate efforts. There 
is an argument in every case, only it is hidden and not 
recognized. Let us lift the natural logic of common 
Christian life into an avowed principle of proof. The 
unrecognized evidence is that of Christian experi- 
ence, exerting its power not only upon the individual 
to whom it primarily belongs, but also upon others 
within the reach of his influence. The same method 
holds good, only in a higher degree, in our efforts to 
strengthen the faith of weak Christians. When we 
show them the evidential value of the life within, and 
thus convince them of the rationality of their belief, 
we are enabled to save them from anxiety and sorrow, 
if not from spiritual shipwreck. 

If we put the evidence of Christian experience thus 
to the front, the other evidences, as we have seen in 
the last two lectures, fall readily into place and give 
their strong confirmation to the inward proof. 

Perhaps I am an enthusiast in this matter. But I 
cannot help thinking and believing that when Chris- 
tian teachers and ministers come more fully to recog- 
nize the essential and central value of the experimen- 
tal evidence of Christianity, the kingdom of God will 
move forward in its triumphant course with a speed 
and success such as the world has not witnessed for 
many ayear. That this may be the case is my hope. 
That, whatever be the means, the kingdom will ad- 
vance, | know. If in some small measure these lect- 
ures, which I have prepared and delivered with so 
much delight, shall aid in the great work of the king- 
dom, [ shall feel that my labor has not been in vain. 


JAvl Pded AND Hos, 


NOTES TO LECTURE I. 


Note 1, Pace 6. 


On the subject of deism, see Leland’s View of the Principal 
Deistical Writers ; Lechler’s Geschichte des englischen Deismus ; 
Stephen’s History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury ; Hunt’s Religious Thought in England; Farrar’s Critical 
History of Free Thought ; and Pfleiderer’s Religionsphilosophie, 
2d ed., vol. i., pp. 108-132. 

Deism was only one of the manifestations of the great intellect- 
ual movement of the period, a period which was emphatically 
the age of reason. In religion, in philosophy, in literature, in 
politics, in science, we meet with the same spirit. Its influence 
was felt alike in the orthodoxy and the infidelity of the times. In 
its earliest and best stage it appears in the writings of such ra- 
tional theologians as Hooker, Chillingworth, Taylor, and the Cam- 
bridge Platonists, Whichcote, Smith, Cudworth, Norris, and More. 
To these men reason meant those higher functions of the intellect 
which man shares with God. Its infidel representative is Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury, who, though he is commonly called a deist, 
and rejected the distinctively Christian doctrines, yet by his ear- 
nestness of purpose and spiritual depth differs widely from the 
later opponents of revealed religion. In the more advanced stage 
of the movement reason had come to be synonymous with the un- 
derstanding or common-sense. The aim alike of the defenders 
and the foes of Christianity seemed to be to bring religion down 
to the level of a reason which finds its horizon in the five senses. 

The philosopher of this age was John Locke. Its poetical 
evangel was Pope’s Essay on Man (cf, Farrar’s Critical History of 


380 APPENDIX. 


Free Thought, pp. 22, 23). The fact that Locke’s Reasonableness 
of Christianity was regarded by orthodox men as a satisfactory 
exposition of the Christian faith speaks volumes concerning the 
tone of the prevailing orthodoxy. The fact that Bishop Warbur- 
ton could appear as the champion of the Essay on. Man is a no 
less notable indication of the state of the religious mind. The 
great bugbear of the period was “enthusiasm.” Locke subjects 
it to calm philosophical contempt in a famous chapter in the Essay 
concerning Human Understanding (Bk. iv., ch. 19). Swift holds 
it up to bitter ridicule in his account of the ‘‘ AZolists ” in the Tale 
of a Tub (section*viii.). Yet by enthusiasm most men at this 
time meant what we now Call spiritual Christianity. Hunt says 
(Religious Thought in England, vol. iii., p. 3897), and probably 
with truth, ‘‘that the Spirit of God had virtually departed from 
the world, was a doctrine universally received both by Churchmen 
and Dissenters.” 

Leland says (Deistical Writers, London, 1798, vol. 1, phe 
“‘That which properly characterizes these deists is, that they 
reject all revealed religion, and discard all pretences to it, as 
owing to imposture or enthusiasm. In this they all agree, and in 
professing a regard for natural religion, though they are far from 
being agreed in their notions of it.” Lord Herbert directed his 
attack against the contents of the Christian revelation, reducing 
religion to five doctrines, namely, the existence of God, the duty 
of worshipping him, the obligation of piety and virtue, the pardon 
of sins on the ground of repentance, and rewards and punish- 
ments ina future state (cf. his De Religione Gentilium). Shaftes- 
bury, without directly assailing Christianity, undermined its in- 
fluence by the aid of raillery and ridicule. Toland, commonly 
reckoned a deist, but not essentially different in tone and spirit 
from Locke, whose disciple he professed to be, undertook in his 
Christianity not Mysterious, to show that the Scriptures contain 
no doctrines not level with the common understanding of men. 
Tindal worked in the same line, taking for his thesis the assertion 
that Christianity is as old as the creation, and the Gospel a repub- 
lication of the religion of nature. In the ‘ Deist’s Bible,” as Tin- 
dal’s book was called, religion is reduced to its lowest terms ; in a 
word, it becomes pure natural religion. 

But the attack was not confined to the supernatural contents of 
Christianity. A vigorous assault was directed, especially during 
the latter part of the period of deism, against its historical de- 


ae | a oe) ee 


APPENDIX. 381 


fences. Blount, Morgan, and Chubb opened their batteries 
against the scriptural history and its evidences. Collins assailed 
the argument from prophecy. Woolston, Annet, and Hume 
made a vigorous, and at first apparently successful, onslaught 
upon the miracles. 

Deism reached its climax—and, we might almost say, its reductio 
ad absurdum—in Bolingbroke and Hume. Bolingbroke—the man 
whom that ‘‘ good hater” Dr. Johnson called “a scoundrel and a 
coward ”’—represented the worst features of deism, its lack of 
moral earnestness, its cynicism, its artificiality, its tendency to 
duplicity, its superficial scholarship. Yet the movement is 
summed up in him as in no other man. All the deistical argu- 
ments are stated by him with clearness and force, especially the 
historical. In his confinement of the divine government to the 
general laws imposed upon nature at the creation, and his con- 
sequent denial of miracles, revelation, and special providence, we 
see at its height the philosophical tendency characteristic of 
deism. Hume’s importance in the movement depends not so much 
upon his Essay on Miracles as upon his sceptical philosophy, 
which, calling in question, as it did, the fundamental principles 
alike of religion, metaphysics, and morals, was the logical out- 
come of the revolt of the human understanding against the limits 
which God has imposed upon it. As Pfleiderer has truly said 
(Religionsphilosophie, 2d ed., vol. i, p. 126), Hume stands in 
the same relation to the rationalistic movement in England as 
Kant to that in Germany. If the result was different in the two 
cases, it was because other and deeper influences were at work— 
predominantly spiritual in England, intellectual in Germany. 


Norte 2, Pace 6. 


The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Consti- 
tution and Course of Nature, published in 1786. 


Notes 3, Pace 6. 
A View of the Evidences of Christianity, published in 1794. 


Nore 4, PAGE 7%. 
Paley’s Evidences, Pt. I., Prop. 1. 


Nore 5, PAGE 9, 
Faust, Erster Theil, 


382 APPENDIX. 


Note 6, Paes 11. 
The first Leben Jesu was published at Tiibingen in 1885. 


Notg 7, Page 11. 


Die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe des Apostels Paulus, 18385. 
Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi, 1845. Kritische Untersuchungen 
iiber die kanonischen Evangelien, 1847. 


Note 8, Pace 15. 


See the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, London, 1888, vol. 
i., pp. 807-309. Cf. ib., vol. i., p. 47, where Darwin speaks of the 
delight he took in Paley’s Evidences, when he studied that work 
at Cambridge. Cf. also the Presbyterian Review, vol. ix., p. 569 
seq.: Charles Darwin’s Religious Life, by Professor B. B. War- 
neld 2D. 

. Note 9, Pace 16. 


The Limits of Religious Thought, Bampton Lectures, 1858. 


Note 10, Pace 16. 


Notes on Reid, 1846. Discussions in Philosophy, Literature, etc., 
New York, 1858. Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, edited by 
Mansel and Veitch, 1859-1861. 


Note 11, Pace 16, 


First Principles of a System of Philosophy, 1862. Amer., 2d 
ed., 1872. 

Note 12, Pace 29. 

In the early church the evidences are treated with a breadth 
and vigor of thought and a freshness of conception character- 
istic of the theology of the age, before the facts and truths of 
Christianity had lost their living reality and been exchanged for 
dogmas. On every side Christianity was attacked, by Jews and 
heathen, with the weapons of persecution, ridicule, theology, and 
philosophy. The early apologists, such as the unknown author 
of the Epistle to Diognetus, Justin Martyr, Minutius Felix, Ter- 
tullian, and Origen, avail themselves of almost all the resources of 
apologetics to repel the assaults of their opponents and to set forth 
the divine truth of Christianity. Among the historical proofs 
those from prophecy and miracles were especially urged. The 
connection between Christianity and Judaism was brought for- 
ward to disprove the charge that the former was a new religion. 


APPENDIX. 383 


Augustin, in that wonderful apologetical treatise The City of God, 
vindicated the truth of Christianity and its right of existence in 
opposition to heathenism by an elaborate and comprehensive his- 
torical argument. The rational evidence was also exhibited with 
great force and success. To show that all the scattered truth in 
the heathen religions and philosophies was really an anticipation 
of Christianity, Justin proclaimed his doctrine of the Logos sper- 
matikos, the pre-existent Christ, who, as the true Light that lighteth 
every man, was in the hearts even of the heathen as a seed of 
_ divine teaching, preparing the way for the Gospel of redemovtion. 
Later writers took up the same thought, men like Clement of 
Alexandria showing that Christianity is the true philosophy. 

The contents of the Christian revelation were also exhibited and 
vindicated. The earlier apologists expounded those great truths 
which Christianity maintains in common with natural religion— 
the unity of God, the creation of the world, the divine providence, 
the moral law, the freedom and responsibility of man, the rewards 
and punishments of the future life. Afterward the distinctively 
Christian doctrines were set forth and defended by men like 
Origen and Athanasius. The incarnation of Christ, his life and 
death, his redemptive work, and the Gospel of forgiveness and 
salvation through him, were urged in evidence of the truth of 
Christianity. Nor was the first branch of the practical argument 
neglected. In answer to the attacks made upon the character of 
the Christians as citizens and the morality of their lives, the early 
defenders of the faith pointed triumphantly to the effects of the 
Gospel upon its professors. Said the author of the Epistle to 
Diognetus (ch. v.), speaking of the Christians, ‘‘ They pass their 
days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the 
prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their 
lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all.” This was 
the undeniable evidence for the truth of the Christian claims. Cf. 
Der Beweis des Glaubens, vols. i. and ii.: Die apologetische 
Thatigkeit der alten Kirche, by Burk. 

There is no reason to doubt that during these first ages Chris- 
tianity was practically recognized as a living power in the hearts 
of believers. The Christianity of the martyrs and confessors was 
not a matter of doctrine or opinion, but of life, of personal com- 
munion with God through Christ. The lofty spiritual piety of 
such a book as Augustin’s Confessions shows how real was the 
understanding of the highest and most essential element in Chris- 


O84 APPENDIX. 


tianity even when the church was passing into its medieval stage. 
It is one thing, however, to hold to the spiritual realities in the 
practical Christian life, and quite another to make use of them in 
theology and in the scientific statement of Christian evidence. 
Very early in this period there begin to be indications of the ten- 
dency to regard Christianity rather as a revelation than as a life, 
and to understand by revelation mainly a system of doctrine. 
Undoubtedly this tendency was fostered by the prevalent view 
of Christianity as a philosophy, but it was also connected with the 
great wave of doctrinal controversy which swept over the church, 
and the externalizing of Christianity in government and worship, 
which prepared the way for the medisval system. Faith was 
represented not as a personal trust in a living Saviour, but as an 
assent to a system of doctrine in which the activity of the will 
was only the instrument for the acceptance by the intellect. 
According to Augustin, faith is submission to the teachings of 
divine revelation as vouched for by the church and the Scriptures. 
‘To believe,” he says, ‘‘is nothing else than to think with as- 
sent.” (De Preedestinatione Sanctorum, 5: ‘‘ Ipsum credere nihil 
aliud quam cum assentione cogitare.”) It is this kind of faith that 
is meant in Augustin’s famous saying, ‘‘ Fides precedit intellect- 
um ;” the thinking with assent is to be followed by an intellectual 
appropriation of the contents of faith. In the Eastern Church 
religion became synonymous with the acceptance of orthodox doc- 
trine. In the Western, if the same extreme was not reached, still 
the tendency was to intellectualize faith. 

It is, therefore, not strange that we look in vain through the 
writings of the first great apologetical age of the church to find 
any satisfactory presentation of the evidence of Christian experi- 
ence. 


Nore 18, Pace 29. 


During the Middle Ages the apologetical interest falls into the 
background. The great opponents of Christianity have been 
overcome, A few works, it is true, were directed against the 
Jews and the Mohammedans. Of these the most noted was the 
Summa Catholice Fidei contra Gentiles of Thomas Aquinas. 
But we need not look exclusively to the avowed apologies of 
Christianity to discover the medieval system of apologetics. That 
system was elaborated in the discussions of the scholastic theolo- 
gians respecting the relations of faith and philosophy, revelation 


APPHNDIX., 385 


and reason. It attained its full development in the writings of 
Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. 

The distinction is made between truth discoverable by reason, 
and truth discoverable only by divine revelation. Revelation is 
regarded as doctrine, as the communication of truth undiscover- 
able by reason. The medieval theology does not identify revela- 
tion and Scripture. The revelation existed before the Scripture. 
Scripture and tradition are the sources of our knowledge of reve- 
lation. We are to receive them as true upon the authority of the 
church, the pillar and ground of the truth, which in all ages has 
stood in vital connection with Christ and the Holy Spirit through 
the hierarchy, administering at once the divine grace and the divine 
truth. But while the church thus vouches for the truth of Script- 
ure and tradition, through which we learn what the revelation 
was, the church owes its authority to the revelation, which is the 
ultimate ground of Christianity. The reality and divinity of 
this revelation are proved by outward criteria, such as miracles 
and prophecy, and by inward criteria, such as the person of 
Christ and the reasonableness of the doctrine. 

These criteria, or evidences of reason, prove only the form of the 
Christian revelation but not its contents. If what has been said 
with respect to the inward criterion of the reasonableness of the 
doctrine would seem to prove the contrary, the appearance is fal- 
lacious. All that is meant is that the doctrines contain nothing 
contrary to reason, that they do not conflict among themselves, 
and that they can to a certain extent be illustrated by rational anal- 
ogies. The infallible church is the only authorized interpreter 
of revelation. The inquirer may convince himself upon grounds 
of reason that the revelation is divine, but the church alone can 
unfold to him the matter of the revelation. Where reason ends, 
faith begins. Faith is assent to the truth of revelation as ex- 
pounded by theinfallible church. So far as it is a submission of 
the soul to this divine truth as interpreted by the church, it is an 
act of will. So farasit is the apprehension of the truth, it is an act 
of the intellect. Viewed on the divine side, it is a work of grace 
wrought in the soul by God. It need not be an explicit faith 
which comprehends the truths accepted. Sufficient if it be an im- 
plicit faith that receives the doctrines of revelation in the mass, 
and leaves to the infallible church the task of interpreting them. 

According to the medieval theory Christianity includes two ele- 
ments—the original revelation and the living church standing in 

25 


356 APPENDIX. 


vital connection with Christ, permeated by the Holy Spirit, ad- 
ministering the divine grace through its hierarchy and sacraments. 
But practically, since the church is the infallible custodian and 
interpreter of the revelation, the latter is swallowed up by the 
former, and the church and Christianity are identical. 

Of course this system gives no prominence to the evidence of 
Christian experience. Yet that it doesnot utterly exclude it, is 
shown by the fact that it recognizes the faith of the Christian asa 
fides divina wrought by God himself. In the principle of Anselm, 
taken, as we have seen, from Augustin—fides precedit intellectum— 
more was meant than a mere assent ; it was an assent involving 
experience. Anselm says (De Fide Trinitatis, c. 2), ‘‘ Qui non 
crediderit, non intelliget. Nam qui non crediderit, non experie- 
tur ; et qui expertus non fuerit, non intelliget.” The fervid piety 
of which we have abundant iilustration in the Acta Sanctorum 
and the writings of the mystical theologians shows that the evi- 
dence of experience was operative asa practical principle, if not 
as a regularly recognized part of the apologetical system. 


Note 14, PAGE 29. 


It is only when we come to Protestantism that we find an ade- 
quate conception of the nature of Christianity, and a willingness to 
give a place in theology and the evidences of Christianity to the 
personal experience of the Christian. The Reformation cut loose 
from the authority of the church and planted itself upon the 
Bible. If the Roman Catholics set the church above the Bible, 
the Reformers set the Bible above the church. To them the in- 
spired Word of God was the one authority, the sole rule of faith 
and practice. The Reformers, however, were far from identifying 
the Bible with Christianity, or confining Christianity to the reve- 
lation of which the Bible is the record. It was to them the me- 
dium—along with the sacraments—through which the redemp- 
tive power of God comes to the human heart in every age. It was 
the great means of grace—a term which had not then, as now, be- 
come trite, but carried its full meaning upon its face. As the 
Roman Church claimed to be the living medium of the divine 
grace, the Protestants claimed that the Bible is such a medium. 
Upon this point Lutherans and Reformed were united, differ- 
ing only in that the former confined the operations of the Holy 
Spirit in grace exclusively to the Word and the sacraments, while 


ee oe 6 ee ee ee 


~iw ? ri) 


a in a 


s.r 


APPENDIX. 387 


the latter gave them a wider scope, though still making the Word 
and the sacraments the ordinary means of grace. But in the first 
age of Protestantism all recognized Christianity as consisting not 
only in a revelation made long ago, but also in the present power 
of God by which the facts and truths thus revealed are brought to 
bear upon the hearts of men. To Luther and Calvin the Bible is 
not a dead letter, but the Word of God which is ‘‘ quick and 
powerful,” because it is the instrument in the hands of the present 
Spirit. 

At first the only foes of Protestantism were the Roman Catho- 
lics; there were no infidels. Hence the apologetical activity of 
the Reformers was directed chiefly against the old Church. The 
great question to be answered was, How shall we prove the Bible 
to be true, if there is no infallible church to vouch for it with its 
living voice of God ? 

The question did not mean precisely what it would in our 
times, when the distinction between the Bible and the revelation 
of which it is a record is for the most part clearly made. The 
Reformers took from the Roman Catholics the rationalistic view 
of revelation as a system of doctrinal truth. The Catholics, as 
we have seen, did not identify the revelation and the Bible; the 
supreme place they gave to the church, and the subordinate place 
they accorded to the Bible, prevented them from doing so. The 
Protestants, however, in subordinating the church and raising 
the Bible to the place of authority, failed clearly to distinguish 
the revelation from its record. These two imperfections of the 
Protestant system, the conception of revelation as a system of 
doctrine, and the identification of revelation and the Bible, were 
destined to bring about disastrous consequences. At the time of 
which I am speaking, their evil tendency was not perceived. 
The question before the Reformers was, How shall we show that 
the Bible—that is, the Christian revelation understood as the true 
doctrine of the Gospel—is divine ? 

In answering this question the Protestants did not fall back 
solely upon the historical and rational evidences. They accepted 
these evidences as they received them ready-made from the Cath- 
olic Church. Calvin mentions all the proofs of these classes in 
his Institutes, and admits their importance. But these evidences, 
the Reformers declared, since they rest merely upon the discov- 
eries of human reason, can at the most give only a moral cer- 
tainty, that is, a high degree of probability. They do not give 


388 APPENDIX. 


that divine and infallible certainty which the Christian needs, in 
order that his own soul may be satisfied, and that he may have a 
sufficient answer to give to the gainsayer. They produce only a 
human faith, not that divine faith which makes wise unto salva- 
tion. The certain persuasion of the divine truth of the Scriptures 
‘‘must be sought,” Calvin says, ‘‘from a higher source than 
human reasons, or judgments, or conjectures” (Institutes, Bk. i., 
ch. vii., sect. 4). 

What is this higher source ?° The early Protestants answered, 
God himself. We receive the Scriptures as true because God is 
their author and speaks to us in and through them. We know 
that they are the Word of God because the same Spirit who in- 
spired their writers and speaks to us through their pages wit- 
nesses in our souls to their truth. The appeal is to the inward 
witness of the Spirit, the testémonium Spiritus Sancti internum, 
The unregenerate man does not possess this witness. His reason 
is darkened, so that he cannot discern the divine power that is at 
work in the Scriptures. In the regenerate soul this darkness is 
removed by the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit, so that 
it recognizes the presence of the Spirit in the Word, and knows 
it to be true and divine. Thus God himself vouches for the truth 
of the Scriptures. 

Here, then, the evidence of Christian experience, which from 
the first had been contained implicitly in the Christian system, 
comes clearly into view. It is not yet, however, stated in its 
completeness, or with a distinct recognition of its far-reaching 
character. The inward witness of the Spirit is valid evidence so 
far as it goes. It turns from the outward proofs, which can give 
only probability, to the experience of the regenerate soul. The 
particular element in that experience which it emphasizes is un- 
doubtedly real. Every Christian has a conviction that is indubi- 
table, of the truth and divine authority of the Gospel and the 
Book which records it. And every Christian ascribes this con- 
viction to the Holy Spirit. 

But still the bottom of the matter is not reached. This is buta 
part of the evidence of Christian experience. The divine faith, 
the spiritual illumination, through which the Christian is con- 
vinced of the truth and divinity of the scriptural system, needs 
a deeper grounding. The question arises, How do we know that 
this is the work of the Spirit? And this inevitably raises the 
further questions, How do we know that the Holy Spirit acts 


TRI Se a 
ay 


ce oe 


APPENDIX, 389 


upon our souls at all? How do we know that Christianity is a 
present divine power ? 

But these were not the questions the Reformers were trying to 
answer. They had in view only the immediate need, the proof 
required in their controversy with the Roman Catholics. It was 
enough for them to answer the question, how we know the Bible 
to be divine. And yet the answer to the deeper questions lay 
near at hand. The Reformers and the Protestant theologians who 
followed them all held the doctrine of Christian assurance, bas- 
ing it upon the inward work of grace and the witness of the Spirit 
to the believer’s sonship. ‘‘ This certainty,” says the West- 
minster Confession (ch. xviii., sect. 2), which states the doctrine 
in its typical form, ‘‘is not a bare conjectural and probable per- 
suasion, grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible assur- 
ance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of 
salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these 
promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption wit- 
nessing with our spirits that we are the children of God ; which 
Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to 
the day of redemption.” 

Here, then, is the deeper element in Christian experience, the 
larger work of grace, of which the believer’s faith or spiritual il- 
lumination is a part, and the witness of the Spirit to the reality of 
this work of grace which underlies the Spirit’s witness to the 
truth of the Gospel, or of the Book which records it. In other 
words, the evidence of the reality and truth of Christianity has 
for its root the evidence that the believer is a child of God. That 
the early Protestants did not clearly discern the connection be- 
tween the two elements in the Christian’s experience, was what 
was to be expected under the circumstances. Yet it would not 
be impossible to find passages in their writings which betray at 
least a tacit consciousness that the witness of the Spirit to the be- 
liever’s adoption and the witness to the divinity and truth of the 
Scriptures are at the root one, parts of that one powerful influence 
of the Spirit upon the believer’s soul which is the great present 
proof of the reality of Christianity. 


Note 15, Pace 29. 
See Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk. i., ch. 
vii.-ix., in which the reformer gives his system of apologetics. 
The caption of ch. vii. is: “‘ The testimony of the Spirit neces- . 


390 APPENDIX. 


sary to confirm the Scripture, in order to the complete establish- 
ment of its authority. The suspension of its authority on the 
judgment of the church, an impious fiction.” Ch. viii. gives 
the “Rational proofs to establish the belief of the Scripture.” 
Here all the common external arguments are stated. The title 
of ch. ix. is: ‘‘The fanaticism which discards the Scripture, 
under the pretence of resorting to immediate revelations, subver- 
sive of every principle of piety.” Here he guards against the 
wrong use of the argument from experience. The * higher 
source,” of which mention is made in the previous note, is, ac- 
cording to Calvin, ‘‘ the secret testimony of the Spirit” (ch. vii., 
sect. 4). In the same connection he says: ‘‘As God alone is a 
sufficient witness of himself in his own word, so also the word will 
never gain credit in the hearts of men till it be confirmed by the 
internal testimony of the Spirit. It is necessary, therefore, that 
the same Spirit who spake by the mouth of the prophets should 
penetrate into our hearts, to convince us that they faithfully de- 
livered the oracles which were divinely intrusted to them.” This 
persuasion, he says (¢b¢d., sect. 5), is such “as requires no reasons; 
such a knowledge as is supported by the highest reason, in which, 
indeed, the mind rests with greater security and constancy than 
in any reasons; it is, finally, such a sentiment as cannot be pro- 
duced but by a revelation from heaven. I speak of nothing but 
what every believer experiences in his heart, except that my lJan- 
guage falls far short of a just explication of the subject.” 


Note 16, Pacer 80. 


Ch. i., sect. 5: ‘‘ We may be moved and induced by the tes- 
timony of the church to an high and reverent esteem for the 
Holy Scripture ; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy 
of the doctrine, the majesty of the Style, the consent of all the 
parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), 
the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, 
the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire per- 
fection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evi- 
dence itself to be the word of God; yet notwithstanding, our 
full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine 
authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, 
bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.” To which 
may be added what is said of the interpretation of the Scripture 
(ch. i, sect. 6); ‘‘ We acknowledge the inward illumination of 


APPENDIX, B91 


the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of 
such things as are revealed in the Word.” 


Note 17, Paae 30. 


Baxter was one of those remarkable men who live at the turn- 
ing-points of human history, and in their experience and teaching 
unite the best results of the manifold intellectual and spiritual 
movements of their times. His active life was passed during the 
stirring scenes of the English Civil War and the generation that 
followed. His sympathies were with all that was best in the 
Reformation and Puritan theology. But he had felt the power of 
that great tide of rational thought which had begun to flow early 
in the seventeenth century. In philosophy the works of Bacon, 
Hobbes, and Descartes were agitating men’s minds with a host of 
new ideas. Physical science was just beginning its wonderful 
career of modern progress. In church and state the old struct- 
ures had been torn down and men were building anew with all 
the enthusiasm of a new era. As yet free thought had not 
generally run into rationalism and deism. There was just enough 
of opposition to Christianity to make the Christian theologian stir 
himself in its defence. On the other hand, the appearance of 
Quakerism, and kindred forms of what seemed to be unchristian 
enthusiasm, acted as a warning against an undue use of the 
subjective element in Christianity. 

These influences combined with the strong natural parts and 
earnest spiritual piety of Baxter to render him one of the deepest, 
most vigorous, and most tolerant theological thinkers of his cen- 
tury, giving his writings a value to-day which belongs to those of 
none of his contemporaries. He was thus fitted, as few theolo- 
gians have been, to deal with the evidences of Christianity. 

Baxter’s biographer, Orme (Works, 1830, vol. i., p. 440), says that 
he was the first original English writer on apologetics. Certainly 
no one had previously undertaken the task with any scientific 
thoroughness. The Protestant churches of the Continent had, it 
is true, furnished a few eminent apologists, of whom the most 
important was Hugo Grotius. But their influence seems to have 
been little felt in Great Britain, and to Baxter undoubtedly be- 
longs the credit of having laid the foundations of this science 
in the land where it was to win some of its most brilliant tri- 
umphs, 


392 APPENDIX. 


But Baxter’s merit lies not so much in the fact that he is the 
father of English apologetical science, as in that he did the work 
so thoroughly and comprehensively, laying the foundations so 
broad and deep. In a series of treatises on the evidences, extend- 
ing over twenty-one years, the Puritan theologian wrought out the 
new science, gathering strength as he proceeded. His two most 
important works upon this subject are The Unreasonableness of 
Infidelity, and The Reasons of the Christian Religion, the latter 
treating of natural theology as well as of the evidences of 
Christianity. These works are marred in treatment and style 
by the peculiarities of the man and his age. There is a minute 
scholastic subdivision of the subjects which is repellent to the 
ordinary reader. The logic of the arrangement is far from 
perfect. There is a diffuseness which is none the less tedious 
because it was characteristic of the scholarly writings of the times. 
But in spite of these faults, there is a massiveness in the architec- 
tonic of the system, a profundity in the thought, an understand- 
ing of the meaning of Christianity, a spiritual insight, a compre- 
hensiveness in the treatment of details, a beauty oftentimes in the 
style, which render these works of unique value. I do not hesitate 
to say that the future writers on the evidences who are to recon- 
struct the discipline upon a scientific basis will have to go back to 
Baxter for their starting-point. Considering the state of the theo- 
logical sciences of his time, the thoroughness of his work is re- 
markable. There is scarcely a positive argument for Christianity 
which he does not bring forward, and scarcely an objection which 
he does not answer. In not a few points he is far ahead of the 
apologists of our own times. It is a delight to me to bring these 
almost forgotten works to the attention of my readers, and to urge 
upon them their careful study. 

My space will not permit me to do more than give the hasti- 
est glance at Baxter’s system; but I cannot forbear quoting 
from The Reasons of the Christian Religion a passage which 
gives the outline of his apologetics. Chapter VI. of that work 
treats ‘‘Of the Witness of Jesus Christ, or the demonstrative 
evidence of his verity and authority, namely, the Spirit, in four 
parts: 1. Antecedently by prophecy; 2. Constitutively and in- 
herently, the image of God, on his person, life and doctrine ; 
3. Concomitantly, by the miraculous power and works of Christ 
and his disciples ; 4. Subsequently, in the actual salvation of men 
by renovation” (Works, 1880, vol. xxi., p. iv). Here is a scheme 


APPENDIX. 393 


which deduces the whole system from a single principle and finds 
a place for every argument. A better could not be constructed 
to-day. 

It is an evidence of Baxter’s originality and superiority to his 
predecessors and contemporaries (and I may also say to his suc- 
cessors) that he succeeds for the most part in distinguishing the 
different elements of Christianity, and in avoiding the common 
identification of revelation and the Bible. To him Christianity 
is not merely a finished revelation, embalmed in a book, but a 
present, active power, redeeming men from sin and evidencing 
itself in their lives. 

Of especial interest to us is the full, clear, and satisfactory pres- 
entation by Baxter of the evidence of Christian experience. He 
no longer confines himself, like the older Protestant theologians, 
to the internal testimony of the Spirit to the truth of the Script- 
ures, but, looking upon the whole work of the Spirit in the be- 
liever’s heart, finds in it the great and infallible proof of the reality 
of Christianity. ‘‘ Our present actual and habitual faith and re- 
novation of our souls,” he says, ‘‘ and the sacred inclinations and 
actions therein contained are a standing evidence within us; 
as the written Word and the miracles of Christ are without us ; 
from which we may soundly argue for the verity of Christianity, 
and may look on them as an infallible testimony for Christ. For 
none but the sacred Redeemer of the world, approved by the 
Father, and working by his Spirit, could do such works as are 
done on the souls of all that are truly sanctified” (vol. xx., p. 
136). 

He is far from admitting the claims of the fanatics that we have 
an immediate intuition of God, or that we receive any objective 
revelations from him, as if a voice spoke in our souls declaring the 
testimony of the Spirit. We know the divine power through its 
effects. In answer to the question, ‘‘ How shall I know that I have 
the Spirit of Christ?” he replies, ‘‘ By the nature of its effects. The 
Spirit of Christ doth renew the soul to God’simage. And one of 
God’s attributes is to be the living God. His being is the ground of 
the rest. The Spirit of Christ is no fancy, dream, or delusion, nor 
worketh an imaginary change on the soul, but a real change, mak- 
ing the soul alive that was dead in sin, and becomes a principle of 
life within us ” (ibid., p. 153). He goes on to show how the various 
attributes of God manifest themselves in this work of the Spirit. 
But the fact that we know the divine power within through its 


394 APPENDIX. 


effects, and not by an immediate intuition, does not make the 
knowledge any the less real and satisfactory. 

I cannot refrain from quoting two more passages, which not 
only further exhibit the line of argument, but also illustrate the 
rich vein of spiritual thought which runs through all these re- 
markable treatises. Speaking of those who have the Spirit of 
Christ, Baxter says: ‘‘If they cannot answer the cavils of an in- 
fidel, yet they can hold fast the ground of faith. Christ hath 
deeper room and interest in them. He is held faster by the heart 
than by the head alone. Love will hold Christ when reason alone 
would let him go. If you will draw such a soul as this to infidel- 
ity, you must draw him out of the arms and embracement of 
Christ. His ear is, as it were, nailed to his door; because he 
loveth him, he will not leave him” (ibid., p. 156). And again : ‘‘ So 
if the tempter should persuade such a man to doubt whether the 
Gospel be true, or be God’s Word, this believer may have recourse 
into his soul for a testimony of it ; thence he can tell the tempter 
by experience that he hath found the promises of this Gospel 
made good to him. Christ hath there promised to send his Spirit 
into the souls of his people, and so he hath done by me; he hath 
promised to give light to them that sit in darkness,and to guide their 
feet into the ways of peace ; to bind up the broken-hearted, and set 
at liberty the captives ; and all this he hath fulfilled upon me: all 
that he hath spoken about the power of his Word and grace, and the 
nature of its effects, I have found upon myself. The help which 
he promised in temptations, the hearing of prayer, the relief in 
distress ; all these I have found performed ; and therefore I know 
that the Gospel is true” (ibid., p. 162). 


Note 18, Paces 80. 


John Owen, The Reason of Faith. This work by no means 
stands on the level of Baxter’s treatises. For the most part itisa 
discussion of the old question, ‘‘ Wherefore we believe the Script- 
ure to be the word of God?” and an exposition of the Protestant 
doctrine of the inward witness of the Spirit, which Owen, in his 
reaction from the Quaker doctrine of revelation by the inward 
light, states somewhat too narrowly and guardedly. In places, 
however, the argument enlarges into the proof of Christian ex- 
perience. ‘‘ I must say ” he declares (Owen’s Works, London and 
Edinburgh, 1852, vol. iv., p. 94),‘‘ that although a man be fur- 
nished with external arguments of all sorts concerning the divine 


APPENDIX. 395 


original and authority of the Scriptures, although he esteem his 
motives of credibility to be effectually persuasive, and have the 
authority of any or all the churches in the world to confirm his 
persuasion, yet if he have no experience in himself of its divine 
power, authority, and efficacy, he neither doth nor can believe it to 
be the Word of God in a due manner—with faith divine and super- 
natural. But he that hath this experience hath that testimony in 
himself which will never fail.” 


Nore 19, Pace 380. 


Watts’s Three Sermons on The Inward Witness to Christian- 
ity, from the text 1 John v. 10: ‘‘He that believeth on the Son 
of God hath the witness in himself” (Works, Leeds, 1801, vol. i., 
p. 1 seq.). The sermons were first published in 1720-21. ‘He 
then that believes on the Son of God hath the witness, or tes- 
timony to Christianity, in himself, for he hath within him the 
thing testified. He hath eternal life in himself, he hath this 
eternal life already begun, and it shall be carried on and fulfilled 
in the days of eternity” (p. 5). ‘‘ Eternal life consists in happi- 
ness and holiness. . . . The happiness of eternal life consists 
in the pardon of sin, in the special favor of God, and in the pleas- 
ure that arises from the regular operation of all our powers and 
passions” (p. 6). ‘‘ Holiness may be described by these five nec- 
essary ingredients of it: 1. An aversion to and hatred of all sin. 
2, A contempt of the present world, in comparison of the future. 
3. A delight in the worship and society of God. 4. Zeal and 
activity in his service. 5, A hearty love to fellow-creatures, and 
more especially to fellow-saints ” (p. 12). 

The sermons, though written at the height of the deistic move- 
ment, are quite up to the level of Baxter, and are remarkable for 
their spiritual insight and truth to experience. They deserve the 
careful perusal of all who desire to be familiar with the subject of 
these lectures. I gladly express my obligations to them. 


Nore 20, Paces 30. 


Edwards’s Treatise on the Religious Affections, though in- 
tended to instruct professed Christians in the evidences of true 
piety, contains in fact all the essential elements of the proof of 
Christian experience. The witness of the Spirit to the believer's 
sonship, as was pointed out in a previous note, involves the evi- 
dence of the truth of Christianity. Edwards was aware of this, and 


396 APPENDIX. 


though he does not develop the experimental proof, he distinctly 
presents it. Thus he says: ‘‘A soul may have a kind of intuitive 
knowledge of the divinity of the things revealed in the Gospel” 
(Works, New York, 1880, vol. v., p. 178). ‘‘ It is unreasonable to 
suppose that God has provided for his people no more than prob- 
able evidences of the truth of the Gospel” (ibid., p. 188). ‘‘ The 
Gospel of the blessed God does not go abroad a begging for its evi- 
dence, so much as some think ; it has its highest and most proper 
evidence in itself” (ibid., p. 186). This work of Edwards has been 
most unjustly criticised by unthinking men. I desire to commend 
it for careful study, assured that it will yield a rich harvest not 
merely of edification, but also of material for the best work in 
apologetics. 
Note 21, Pace 30. 


Dr. Chalmers, in his Evidences of Christianity, declines to 
employ that ‘‘internal evidence” ‘‘ which is founded on the 
reasonableness of the doctrine, or the agreement which is con- 
ceived to exist between the nature of the Christian religion and 
the character of the Supreme Being” (Select Works, New York, 
1850, vol. iv., p. 456). He places his chief dependence upon the 
arguments from prophecy and miracles, especially the latter. 
Under these circumstances the experimental evidence could not 
find its true place. Yet it was not entirely unrecognized. In the 
‘* Advertisement ” of his Evidences Chalmers says: ‘‘ The author 
is far from asserting the study of the historical evidence to be the 
only channel to a faith in the truth of Christianity. How could 
he, in the face of the obvious fact that there are thousands and 
thousands of Christians who bear the most undeniable marks of 
the truth having come home to their understanding ‘in demonstra- 
tion of the Spirit and of power ?’ They have an evidence within 
themselves which the world knoweth not, even the promised 
manifestations of the Saviour. This evidence is a ‘sign to them 
that believe’” (ibid., p. 415). But having thus asserted the reality 
and force of this evidence, Chalmers proceeds to ignore it in his 
apologetics, on the ground that it is nota ‘‘ sign to them that 
believe not.” 


Note 22, Pace 380. 


Coleridge, in his reaction from the ‘‘ Paleyo-Grotian” apolo- 
getics, sometimes speaks slightingly of the scientific proof of 
Christianity. We are all familiar with the passage in the Aids to 


APPENDIX. 397 


Reflection : ‘‘ Evidences of Christianity! I am weary of the 
word. Make a man feel the want of it; rouse him, if you can, to 
the self-knowledge of the need of it, and you may safely trust it 
to its own evidence, remembering only the express declaration 
of Christ himself: No man cometh to me, unless the Father 
leadeth him ” (Works, Harper’s ed., 1853, vol. i., p. 368). 

But that this in many respects most stimulating and fruitful of 
modern English thinkers knew how to use his truer conception of 
Christianity in such a way as to attain a complete system of evi- 
dences, is shown by the profound passage in the Biographia Liter- 
aria, in which he gives lis apologetical scheme, and in which he 
finds a place not only for the rational and historical evidences, but 
also for the practical, especially in its experimental form. He 
thus states his view concerning the true evidences of Christianity : 
‘*1, Its consistency with right reason, I consider as the outer court 
of the temple—the common area within which it stands. 2. The 
miracles, with and through which that religion was first revealed 
and attested, I regard as the steps, the vestibule, and the portal of 
the temple. 3. The sense, the inward feeling in the soul of each 
believer of its exceeding desirableness—the experience that he 
needs something, joined with the strong foretokening, that the re- 
demption and the graces propounded to us in Christ are what he 
needs—this I hold to be the true foundation of the spiritual edifice. 
With the strong @ priort probability that flows in from 1 and 3 on 
the correspondent historical evidence of 2, no man can refuse or 
neglect to make the experiment without guilt. But 4, it is the ex- 
perience derived from a practical conformity to the conditions of 
the Gospel—it is the opening eye ; the dawning light; the terrors 
and the promises of spiritual growth ; the blessedness of loving God 
as God, the nascent sense of sin hated as sin, and of the incapability 
of attaining to either without Christ ; it is the sorrow that still rises 
up from beneath, and theconsolation that meets it from above ; the 
bosom treacheries of the principal in the warfare and the exceeding 
faithfulness and long-suffering of the uninterested ally—in a word, 
it isthe actual trial of the faith in Christ, with its accompaniments 
and results, that must form the arched roof, and the faith itself is 
the completing key-stone. In order to an efficient belief in Chris- 
tianity a man must have been a Christian, and this is the seeming 
argumentum in circulo, incident to all spiritual truths, to every 
subject not presentable under the forms of time and space, as 
long as we attempt to master by the reflex acts of the understand. 


398 APPENDIX. 


ing what we can only know by the act of becoming. Do the will of 
my Father, and ye shall know whether I am of God.” 

Coleridge goes on to say : ‘‘ These four evidences I believe to 
have been, and still to be, for the whole church all necessary, all 
equally necessary ; but at present, and for the majority of Chris- 
tians born in Christian countries, I believe the third and fourth evi- 
dences to be the most operative, not as superseding, but as involv- 
ing a glad, undoubting faith in the two former. Credidi, ideoque 
éntellext, appears to me the dictate equally of philosophy and re- 
ligion, even as I believe redemption to be the antecedent of sancti- 
fication, and not ifs consequent. All spiritual predicates may be 
construed indifferently as modes of action or as states of being” 
(ibid., vol. iii., p. 592 seq.). 


Nore 23, Pace 30. 

The Evidences of Christianity, by Daniel Wilson, 1828. New 
York, 1829. Cf. Lectures XIX. and XX., vol. ii., p. 158 seq.: 
‘The test to which every one may bring the truth of the Chris- 
tian religion, by humbly submitting to its directions, and making 
a trial for himself of its promised blessings—1 John v. 10.” 
‘Practical directions for the application of the test to which men 
may bring the Christian revelation—Psalm xxxiv. 8.” 


Note 24, Pace 380. 


Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity before the Lowell In- 
stitute, January, 1844, by Mark Hopkins, D.D., President of Will- 
iams College. Boston, 1846. See Lecture VI., pp. 180-190. 


Note 25, Pace 30. 


The Way of Life, by Charles Hodge, Professor in the Theolo- 
gical Seminary, Princeton, N. J. New York and Philadelphia, 
American Sunday School Union, 1841. Chapter I. sect. ii. (pp. 
22-30): ‘‘The internal evidence of their divine origin is the 
proper ground of faith in the Scriptures.” Cf. p. 29: ‘‘ It is the 
experience of true Christians in all ages and nations that their 
faith is founded on the spiritual apprehension and experience of 
the power of the truth. There are multitudes of such Christians, 
who, if asked why they believe the Scriptures to be the Word of 
God, might find it difficult to give an answer, whose faith is 
nevertheless both strong and rational. They are conscious of its 
grounds though they may not be able to state them. They have 


APPENDIX. 899 


the witness in themselves, and know that they believe, not because 
others believe, or because learned men have proved certain facts 
which establish the truth of Christianity. They believe in Christ 
for the same reason that they believe in God ; and they believe in 
God because they see his glory and feel his authority and power.” 


Note 26, Paar 31. 


In Germany the reaction from rationalism was twofold. On the 
one side, it manifested itself in the pantheistic philosophy, of 
which I have spoken in the present lecture, a movement in its 
whole tendency destructive to Christianity. On the other side, 
it showed itself in the reawakening of evangelical theology which 
takes its start from Schleiermacher. This epoch-making man, at 
once spiritual Christian and speculative philosopher, vindicated 
the rights of Christian experience as a realm of reality and its in- 
dependence of philosophy. The best religious thought of Germany, 
tired of the narrowness and barrenness of supernaturalism and ra- 
tionalism, found in the return to the Christian consciousness the 
satisfaction of its deepest needs. 

The so-called ‘‘ mediating theologians” (Vermittlungs theolo- 
gen), followers of Schleiermacher, but more distinctly evangel- 
ical than he, men like Nitzsch, Twesten, Tholuck, Miller, Rothe, 
and Dorner, made it their aim to incorporate into Christian theol- 
ogy the best elements of the philosophical and religious specula- 
tions of their remarkable age. The results were most fruitful. 
Theology was lifted out of the narrow channels in which it had 
flowed since the period of scholasticism that set in after the first 
vigorous life of the Reformation had subsided. The works of 
these profound and spiritual thinkers are magazines of theological 
thought, from which theologians of every school in Great Britain 
and America have drawn some of their best materials. 

It is easy to see that this evangelical movement, both in its in- 
- ception and its progress, was favorable to the recognition and use 
of the experimental evidence for the truth of Christianity. It is 
true that the pantheistic attack had the effect of turning the atten- 
tion of German apologists predominantly to the historical evidences, 
which they have vindicated with a skill and success deserving 
the warmest approval. But they have also done good work in 
the statement of the experimental proof. Its place in apologetical 
science is recognized by most of the writers on the subject, while 
the two theologians of whom I am to speak in the following notes 


400 APPENDIX. 


have given especial attention to it. It has been employed upon 
an imposing scale by the great church-historian Neander, whose 
colossal work is a continuous presentation of this evidence. He 
says, in the preface to the first edition of his History of the Chris- 
tian Religion and Church (published in 1825): ‘‘ To exhibit the 
history of the church of Christ as a living witness of the divine 
power of Christianity ; as a school of Christian experience; a 
voice, sounding through the ages, of instruction, of doctrine, and 
of reproof, for all who are disposed to listen ; this, from the earliest 
period, has been the leading aim of my life and studies,” (Tor- 
rey’s trans., vol. i.,~p. xxxvi.) Cf. Der heilige Bernhard. 

I owe this allusion to Neander to the suggestion of my respected 
teacher and friend, Dr. Philip Schaff, himself a pupil of Neander. 


Note 27, PaGeE 81. 


See Dorner’s System der christlichen Glaubenslehre, vol. i., pp. 
1-172 (Eng. trans., System of Christian Doctrine, vol. i., pp. 17- 
184): ‘‘ The doctrine of faith as the precondition of the knowl- 
edge of Christianity as the truth, or Pisteology.” Dorner’s words 
in the first section of the Glaubenslehre strike the key-note of 
the coming harmony of philosophy, science, and Christianity : 
“‘TIt may be pronounced to be the universal scientific convic- 
tion of the present day—a conviction which has been especially 
strengthened by the fate of the great philosophical systems—that 
all knowledge—and with knowledge every science has to do— 
presupposes experience, external or internal.” Faith, according to 
Dorner, involves the certainty of the truth of Christianity. By 
faith in this distinctively Christian sense he understands not the 
faith that rests upon historical authority or that which is based 
upon the teachings of philosophy, but that which involves an 
actual contact with God in Christ. It is this faith ‘‘ which in- 
wardly appropriates the Gospel, and to which the Gospel com- 
mends itself by a most peculiar experience as the power of salva- 
tion and as the truth, which establishes a new mode of existence 
and consciousness, namely, that of the children of God” (Glau- 
benslebre, vol. i., p. 128; Eng. trans., vol. i., p. 141). This faith 
involves a new consciousness of God, of self, and of the world, and 
this ‘‘is at the same time associated with the certainty that it and 
its harmony are not merely a subjective imagination, but are ob- 
jectively true and divinely wrought. Faith knows infallibly that 
the Spirit, who reveals to us at once our adoption and the divine 


APPENDIX. 401 


Fatherhood, and who glorifies Christ, is truth (1 John v. 8). For 
we know the truth by the presence of truth in the spirit, which 
truth makes itself evident as light does, and proves itself efficacious 
by contact with our spirit, imparting knowledge ; and by contact 
with the Spirit of God we know that the Spirit of God has im- 
parted this certainty, which is therefore infallible (1 John v. 6)” 
(Glaubensl., vol. i., p. 142; Eng. trans., vol. i., p- 155), 

Dorner’s Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie is fuil of 
valuable matter bearing on the subject before us. While not in 
all respects agreeing with him in his conception of the evidence of 
Christian experience, I have been indebted to him at every step. 
Indeed Dorner’s writings, and his lectures, to which I listened 
many years ago when a student in Berlin, first emancipated me 
from the rationalistic theology and apologetics which I had im- 
bibed from my previous reading and study. 

To the works already mentioned I should add the article enti- 
tled Die Mansel-Maurice’sche Controverse, in the Jahrbiicher fiir 
deutsche Theologie, vol. vi., pp. 320-427. 


Note 28, Page 31, 


System der christlichen Gewissheit, von Dr. Fr. H. R. Frank, 
ordentlichem Professor der Theologie in Erlangen, 1st ed., 1870: 
2d ed., 1881-4. One volume has been translated under the title of 
the System of the Christian Certainty, by Rev. M. J. Evans, B.A. 
Edinburgh, 1886. . 

Frank will not allow that his work is directly apologetical in its 
character: He says, ‘‘ The task which is herewith set for Chris- 
tian theology has points of contact with the apologetic endeavors 
of the present day ; but is essentially distinguished from them by 
the fact that in place of wishing to produce or maintain Christian 
certainty, or to restore it where it has been shaken, it presupposes 
the same as existing, consequently, merely calls for its scientific 
testimony about itself in the sense of Christian gnosis, to the end 
of its rendering an account of itself, and furnishing the proof for 
its right of existence” (vol. i., p. 20; Eng. trans., p. 18 seq.). 
Apologetics, however, is not concerned exclusively with the defence 
of Christianity, but, as has been shown in the preceding lecture, 
aims to present the positive evidence upon which it rests. In fact, 
no more important contribution to apologetical science has been 
made during the present generation than this remarkable work of 
Frank, 

26 


402 APPENDIX. 


Frank bases the certainty of the Christian upon the “‘ special 
moral experience ” ‘‘ of regeneration and conversion, a transfor- 
mation of the man’s moral state of life, accomplished by ethical 
impulses not proceeding from the subject himself, but yet willingly 
received by him; in virtue of which a new I, as innermost deter- 
mining ground of his personal moral life, is henceforth distin- 
guished from that hitherto prevailing, and in conflict with the same 
asserts its central, dominant position ” (vol. i., p. 118; Eng. trans., 
p. 108). 

In this experience faith comes into contact with three classes of 
objects, with regard to which it possesses certainty, and which 
together make up the system of Christian certainty. These are: 
the dmmanent objects of faith, including the fact of habitual and 
actual sin, the natural unfreedom of the will, the habitual and 
actual righteousness of the Christian, and the spiritual freedom of 
his will, and the certain hope of the Christian consummation ; the 
transcendent objects, including the reality and personality of God, 
the tri-unity of God, and the God-man, the author through his 
atonement of our freedom from guilt ; and the transeunt objects, 
which mediate between the immanent and the transcendent, in- 
cluding the church, the Word, and the Scriptures, the sacraments 
and miracles, revelation and inspiration (ibid., p. 191 seq., ete. ; 
Eng. trans., p. 183 seq.). Moreover, the Christian certainty estab- 
lishes on a new basis the objects of the natural life, namely, the 
physical world and the nature of man. 

These facts are treated positively, and also in respect to the 
opposition of the false tendencies of rationalism, pantheism, ma- 
terialism, and criticism. 

Those who are familiar with Frank will recognize my obliga- 
tions to him at every step, obligations which I gladly acknowledge. 
To a considerable extent I have adopted his method and his term- 
inology. Ihave, however, ventured to differ from him at nota 
few important points. This remarkable book has never received 
the notice and careful study it deserves. I earnestly commend it 
to my readers, 


APPENDIX. 403 


NOTES TO LECTURE IL. 


Norte 1, Pace 35. 


Baxter truly says in the Reasons of the Christian Religion 
(Works, 1830, vol. xxi., p. 132), after describing the natural reve- 
lation: ‘‘ Though all this is legible in nature, which I have thence 
transcribed, yet if I had not another teacher, I know not whether I 
should ever have found it there. Nature isnow a very hard book; 
when [ have learnt it by my teacher’s help, I can tell partly what 
is there ; but at the first perusal I could not understand it. It 
requireth a great deal of time and study and help to understand 
that which, when we do understand it, is as plain as the high- 
way.” Nevertheless, the fact remains that the natural revelation 
is preparatory for the Christian, and that the latter cannot be ap- 
prehended without the aid of the former. 


Note 2, Pace 386. 
Baxter’s Works, vol. xxi., p. 181. 


Note 3, Pace 37. 


I desire to express my especial obligations, so far as the present 
lecture is concerned, to Flint’s Theism, Pfleiderer’s Religionsphi- 
losophie, Trendelenberg’s Logische Untersuchungen, Martineau’s 
Study of Religion, and particularly to Dr. Samuel Harris’s Philo- 
sophical Basis of Theism and Self-Revelation of God. These two 
last works seem to me to rank among the noblest statements of 
the theistic philosophy ever written. They have been to me, ever 
since their publication, a source of constant intellectual, and, I 
may add, spiritual, delight. 


Note 4, Pace 387. 


“‘Modus Deum cognoscendi et colendi.” See Luthardt, Kom- 
pendium der Dogmatik, 7th ed., p. 18. 


° 


Note 5, Pace 88. 
Cf. Harris’s Self-Revelation of God, pp. 15-29. 


Note 6, PAGE 38. 
Henry B. Smith, Introduction to Christian Theology, p. 52 seq. 


404 APPENDIX, 


Note 7, Pace 39. 


E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, Amer. ed., 1874, vol. i. pp. 
417-502, vol. ii., pp. 1-442. 


1 


Nore 8, Pace 39. 
Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Pt. I., pp. 184-440. 


Nore 9, Pace 40. 


Respecting the universality of religion, see Tiele, History of 
Religion, translated by Carpenter, Boston, 1877, p. 6; Flint, 
Anti-Theistic Theories, pp. 250-289; Max Miller, Origin and 
Growth of Religion, Amer. ed., p. 76, also pp. 92, 93; Chantepie 
de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, VOL 1) -prat 
seq. 

Note 10, Pace 41. 
Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, 1780. 


Norte 11, Paae 41. 


Cf. Harris, Self-Revelation of God, p.15: * Christianity as 
the absolute religion does not deny that there are other religions. 
On the contrary, it takes up into itself all which is true and right 
in the ethnic religions. It is in antagonism to them only so far 
as they are erroneous in belief, practice, or spirit.» It is the goal 
toward which they are blindly groping, the redemption of which 
they obscurely feel the need, and for which they dimly hope. It 
would bring them to an end, as the sun brings the light of the 
stars to an end, not by quenching it, but by absorbing it in the 
light which fills the firmament.” 


Note 12, PAGE 43. 


Alciphron; or, The Minute Philosopher, in Seven Dialogues. 
Containing an Apology for the Christian Religion against those 
who are called Free-Thinkers. This was published in 17382, In 
1713 had appeared the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philo- 
nous. 

Nore 18, Pace 43. 

Edwards adopted Berkeley’s philosophy and extended it to 
spirit as well as to matter. His view of the relation of God to the 
liuman soul appears at its best in the Treatise on the Religious 


APPENDIX. 405 


Affections. See Lecture I., Note 20. Another side of the same 
doctrine appears in Edwards’s theory of the divine efficiency, which 
in the hands of Hopkins and Emmons ran into a pantheism that 
made God the author of sin as well as of holiness. See the 
Freedom of the Will and Original Sin. 


Note 14, Paar 43. 


‘“Heee Idea que in nobis est, requirit Deum pro causa, Deus- 
que proinde existit.”” Meditations III. and V., and Appendix. 


Note 15, PacEr 48. 
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. iv., ch. x. 


Norte 16, Paar 44, 


Ibid., sect. 10: ‘‘If, then, there must be something eternal, let 
us see what sort of being it must be. And to that, it is very ob- 
vious to reason, that it must necessarily be a cogitative being. 
For it is as impossible to conceive that ever bare incogitative 
matter should produce a thinking intelligent being, as that nothing 
should of itself produce matter.” 


Nott 17, Pac 45. 


Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes 
of the Deity, collected from the Appearances of Nature, published 
in 1802. 


Note 18, Pages 45. 


These treatises were the result of a legacy of £8,000 left by the 
Rev. Francis Henry Egerton, eighth Earl of Bridgewater (born 
1758, died 1829), to be paid to the authors of a series of works 
‘‘on the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in 
the creation.” Chalmers wrote on The Adaptation of External Nat- 
ure to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man; Kidd, On 
the Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of 
Man; Whewell, on Astronomy and General Physics considered 
with Reference to Natural Theology ; Bell, On the Hand, its 
Mechanism and Vital Endowments as evincing Design ; Roget, 
On Animal and Vegetable Physiology, considered with reference 
to Natural Theology ; Buckland, On Geology and Mineralogy ; 
Kirby, On the History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals ; and 
Prout, On Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Diges- 


406 APPENDIX. 


tion, considered with reference to Natural Theology. These 
works mark the highwater limit of the old natural theology. 


Note 19, Pace 46. 


We have learned much from the idealistic philosophy of Ger- 
many. This philosophy, as we saw in the last lecture, is essen- 
tially pantheistic, and in its main tendency antagonistic to Chris- 
tian theism. But there is a better side to it, which we may not 
ignore. It was a reaction, though in an extreme and partially 
erroneous form, from the barren rationalism of the preceding age, 
a reaction which was on the whole favorable to the theistic con- 
ception of God. There is always a deeper movement which un- 
derlies both the false and the true thought of an age, saving the 
false from being all false and making it a powerful and beneficent 
agency in correcting the errors inherent in the true. God uses 
the partial truth and the partial falsehood for the manifestation of 
the higher truth. It is his method, and it is a glorious method. 
Error unconsciously works out truth ; nay, it has its own deposit 
of truth, committed to it by God, who could not do his work ina 
world constituted like ours without it. 

The philosophical movement in Germany that culminated in 
the pantheism of Hegel—which I do not hesitate to call pantheism, 
in spite of the favor with which it is at present received by many 
English and American philosophers who would fain be called 
theists—has led to important modifications of the old view. Kant 
by his criticism of the proofs for the divine existence destroyed 
the power of the traditional theistic argument, as by his idealism 
he gave the death-blow to deism. His pantheistic followers have 
taught us to lay due emphasis upon the divine immanence, which 
was once ignored in the interests of the divine transcendence. It 
is no slight change in our view of God, that we have been brought 
to perceive his presence in the operations of the universe as the 
underlying life and power of all. It is well that we have been 
taught, even by those who are in so many respects our opponents, 
to realize that the history of the world and of mankind is a pro- 
gressive revelation of the divine. We may be thankful that we 
have been led to see the folly of the view that the Infinite cannot 
condescend to the finite, and in lieu of it have attained the higher 
conception of God which makes him the omnipresent Ground 
and indwelling Life of the finite. Not least among our obliga- 
tions to this reaction from deism is the recognition of the fact that 


APPENDIX. 407 


the springs of the human spirit, in its intellectual as well as its 
moral and religious functions, are in the infinite Spirit, the Light 
of all our seeing, the Source of all our power. 

In similar language I may speak of agnosticism. Though in 
its main positions diametrically opposed to theism, it has yet 
exerted an influence for good, not to be ignored, upon the theistic 
philosophy of religion. I have spoken of it in the first lecture. 
Here I shall refer only to the conception of the Absolute with 
which it furnishes us. Meagre as this conception is, lacking in all 
positive characteristics, giving us the form of infinite Being with- 
out the contents, still it is in some respects an advance upon the 
old deism. The agnostic’s unknown Cause is a present and active 
Being, not a remote, shadowy, inoperative Primum Movens. The 
phenomena of which it is the hidden Ground are due to its imme- 
diate efficiency, not to a train of agencies set in motion ages ago. 
Agnosticism insists that. we should find the Cause of all things at 
work here and now. Its Infinite is present everywhere in the 
finite, its mystery turning the most commonplace things and 
events into occasions of reverence and awe. Herbert Spencer 
declares ;: ‘‘ When implying that the Infinite and Eternal Energy 
manifested alike within us and without us, and to which we must 
ascribe not only the manifestations themselves but the law of their 
order, will hereafter continue to be, under its transfigured form, 
an object of religious sentiment ; I have implied that whatever 
components of this sentiment disappear, there must ever survive 
those which are appropriate to the consciousness of a Mystery that 
cannot be fathomed and a Power that is Omnipresent” (The 
Nineteenth Century, Amer. ed., vol. xvi., p. 25). Ishall not 
attempt to weigh the deistic and agnostic theories, and to determine 
the comparative truth and value of each ; but this I will say, that 
cousidering the peculiar tendencies and needs of our age, the effect 
of agnosticism upon the theistic philosophy of religion has been 
not altogether evil. 


Note 20, Paar 46. 


The movement in physical science of which mention was made 
in the last lecture has also contributed its influence to the better- 
ment of the philosophy of religion. The old method was radically 
vicious, a relic of the medieval scholasticism. Not only the so- 
called @ priori argument, but the whole theistic procedure, was a 
dealing with abstractions rather than with things. Modern sci- 


408 APPENDIX. 


ence has made such reasoning as was in vogue in theology and 
philosophy during the Middle Ages ridiculous. First we must 
have facts, then reasoning about facts. We cannot spin a the- 
ology out of our intellects as a spider evolves his web from his 
bowels. Physical science rightly demands that all sciences, if 
they will lay claim to the name, should rest upon a solid basis of 
ascertained and systematized objective fact. Moreover, physical 
science has taught us a lesson of patience in investigation, 
modesty in stating our conclusions, willingness to be taught, 
readiness to review and modify accepted theory, which has been 
of the highest value'to the religious philosopher. If the trans- 
cendent sphere which the theist claims to exist is a reality, it is 
to be investigated in the same spirit as the lower spheres, and, so 
far as the nature of the subject permits, by the same methods. 
Dogmatism has no place here. The kingdom of truth is never to 
be degraded into a kingdom of assertions, 


Note 21, Paces 48. 


Thomas of Aquinas has said (Summ. Theol., I, IL., Qu. cix., 
Art. 1): ‘‘ As the outward visible sun illumines this material 
world, so God, the intellectual sun, shines within us; therefore, 
the natural light of reason which inhabits our souls is an illumi- 
nation from God, through which it becomes light in us, a likeness 
to the divine substance itself.” 


Note 22, Paces 49. 


Dr. Harris says (Self-Revelation of God, pp. 448, 449): ‘‘ The 
old distinction of natural and revealed religion, and natural and 
revealed theology, is no longer available.” ‘‘ Christianity, then, 
is not distinguished from the so-called natural religion and theo- 
logy by the fact of revelation, but by the fact of an additional 
revelation peculiar to itself.” This is true, but not new. 


Note 23, Pace 50. 
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781. 


Note 24, Pager 61. 
Ibid., 2d ed., p. 294 seq. 


Note 25, Pace 82. 
Ibid., p. 672, p. 784. 


APPENDIX, 409 


Note 26, Pace 82. 
Ibid., p. 735. 
Nore 27, Pace 53. 
Contemporary Review, vol. xli., p. 859, Professor T. H. Green. 


Norte 28, Paar 57. 


Meditation II. 
Note 29, Pace 57. 


Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV., ch. ix., sect. 
3: ‘ Experience, then, convinces us that we have an intuitive 
knowledge of our own existence, and an internal infallible per- 
ception that we are.” 

Note 30, Pace 58. 
Tennyson, In Memoriam, xliv. Cf. Porter’s Human Intellect, 


p. 101. 
Nore 31, Pacer 62. 


First Principles, Amer. ed., p. 98. 


Note 32, Pace 62. 
Tulloch, Theism, Amer. ed., p. 329. 

Note 33, Pace 62. 
Theism, p. 288. 


Note 34, Pace 6%. 
Cf. Natural Religion, by J. R. Seeley. 


NOTES TO LECTURE III. 
Nore 1, Pace 70. 


Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. I., ch. i., sect. 1. 


Nore 2, Pace 70. 


Tbid., Bk. IV., ch. iii., sect. 6. Cf. The Reasonableness of Chris- 
tianity, in which Locke teaches the doctrine at present known as 
that of ‘ conditional immortality.” By Adam’s transgression men 
have come under the punishment of death, by which, Locke says 


410 APPHNDIX. 


(sect. 4), can be understood ‘‘ nothing but a ceasing to be, the los- 
ing of all action of life and sense.” ‘‘ From this estate of death 
Jesus restores all mankind to life” (sect. 8). ‘‘ Immortality and 
bliss belong to the righteous; those who have lived in an exact 
conformity to the law of God are out of the reach of death; but 
an exclusion from paradise and loss of immortality is the portion 
of sinners ” (sect. 12). Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity is 
largely occupied with the attempt to show the unreasonableness 
of orthodoxy. Itis through and through rationalistic. 


Note 8, Pace 72. 


Cf. Bushnell’s Nature and the Supernatural. Harris (Self-Re- 
velation of God, p. 84), says: ‘‘In truth, the line between the 
supernatural] and the naeoraia is between personal beings and im- 
personal.” The whole passage is interesting (pp. 83-86). On the 
other side, cf. Henry B. Smith, Apologetics, p. 18 seq. He says 
(p. 23): ‘‘ The true real Supernatural, in its essence, is the Abso- 
lute, the Divine.” 

Norte 4, Pace 74. 
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871. 


Norte 5, Paas 74. 
Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature, 1863. 


Note 6, PAGE 74, 
Mental Evolution in Man. Origin of Human Faculty. 


Note 7, Pace 75. 

Darwinism, an Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, 
1889. 

Nots 8, Pace 76. 

E. B. Tylor says (Anthropology, p. 54): ‘‘On the whole, the 
safest conclusion warranted by facts is that the mental machinery 
of the lower animals is roughly similar to our own up toa limit. Be- 
yond this limit the human mind opens into wide ranges of thought 
and feeling which the beast-mind shows no sign of approaching.” 


Norte 9, PaGcE 76. 
Cf. Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 455 seq. 


APPENDIX. 411 


Norte 10, Pace 77. 


It is instructive to notice how soon in the case of Strauss pan- 
theism ran into a view scarcely different from materialism. Cf. 
Der alte und der neue Glaube. Also, H. B. Smith, Faith and 
Philosophy, p. 443 seq. 


Note 11, Page 79. 
Westminster Sermons, London and New York, 1874, p. 165. 


Nore 12, Pacer "79. 
Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I., pt. iv., sect. 2. 


Norte 13, Pager 80. 
Principles of Psychology, Am. ed., vol. i., pp. 193, 500. 


Nore 14, Pace 80. 


Seth, Hegelianism and Personality, London, 1887. Cf. Fisher’s 
Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, p. 1 seq. : ‘‘ Belief in 
the personality of man, and belief in the personality of God, stand 
or fall together.” Fisher is concerned to prove the personality of 
God, but the rule works both ways. See also Julius Miller’s 
Christliche Lehre von der Siinde (5th ed., vol. i., p. 25 seq.) : 
‘“A philosophy which, by its own theory and the consequent 
laws of itsown method, can never do justice to personality and free- 
dom as principles of real life, is the born foe of Christianity and 
theology, and excludes the idea of their harmonious progress or 
their mutual enlargement. And conversely, a philosophy which 
truly realizes the principle of personality in God and in man is 
the natural ally of Christianity, though at times it may lead to 
differences and contradictions concerning isolated doctrines” 
(Urwick’s trans., vol. i., p. 24). 


Note 15, PaaGE 88. 


Principles of Psychology, Amer. ed., vol. i., p. 508. In the same 
chapter (IX., on the Will) Spencer says, p. 500: ‘‘ Long before 
reaching this point, most readers must have perceived that the 
doctrines developed in the last two parts of this work are at vari- 
ance with the current tenets respecting the freedom of the will. 
That every one is at liberty to do what he desires to do (suppos- 
ing there are no external hindrances), all admit ; though people 


412 APPENDIX. 


of confused ideas commonly suppose this to be the thing denied. 
But that every one is at liberty to desire or not to desire, which 
is the real proposition involved in the dogma of free will, is nega- 
tived by the analysis of consciousness as by the contents of the pre- 
ceding chapters.” 

Nore 16, Paar 84. 


See the Westminster Confession of Faith, ch. ix., Of Free Will: 
‘God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that 
it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature deter- 
mined to good or evil.” ‘‘ Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath 
wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying 
salvation.” 

Nore 17, Pace 84. 


A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing No- 
tions of that Freedom of the Will, which is Supposed to be Essen- 
tial to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, 
Praise and Blame. Published 1754. 


Note 18, Pace 86. 


See the Works of Nathaniel Emmons, D.D., edited by Jacob 
Ide, D.D., Boston, 1842. Especially vol.iv., Part VII., Divine and 
Human Agency. God “exerts his agency in producing all the 
free and voluntary exercises of every moral agent, as constantly 
and fully as in preserving and supporting his existence ” (p. 383). 
I have spoken in the text of Emmons, but equally strong asser- 
tions of the divine efficiency are to be found in the writings of 
Samuel Hopkins: The System of Doctrines contained in Divine 
Revelation, etc., published in 1792; see ch. iv., On the Decrees 
of God. 

Note 19, Pace 87. 


Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, pp. 184, 185. 


Note 20, Pace 87. 
English Men of Letters Series, Hume, p. 192. 


Note 21, PacE 87, 


Popular Lectures, etc., pp. 185, 186. 

An interesting illustration of the connection between the doctrine 
of necessity and the denial of the divine existence is to be found 
in the defection from the Christian faith of that clear-headed wom- 


APPENDIX. 413 


an, Harriet Martineau. The process throughout was thoroughly 
logical. It began in her acceptance of the necessitarian position. 
It went steadily onward until she reached the condition of com- 
plete agnosticism, admitting indeed the existence of some kind of 
First Cause, but denying all knowledge of it, and refusing to clothe 
it with any of the attributes of God in the distinctive sense of the 
term. From a remarkably devout, prayerful woman, she came 
first to abandon petition in prayer, on the ground that the divine 
will is fixed and cannot be changed ; then to abandon prayer alto- 
gether, because she no longer believed in a personal Being as the 
object of prayer. All this was perfectly consistent, and equally 
so her consequent denial of immortality. She died without even 
the hope of the heathen. A few days before her death she wrote to 
one of her most intimate friends, himself an agnostic: ‘‘I cannot 
think of any future as at all probable, except the ‘annihilation ’ 
from which some people recoil with so much horror. I find my- 
self here in the universe, I know not how, whence, or why. I 
see everything in the universe go out and disappear, and I see 
no reason for supposing that it is not an actual and entire death. 
And for my part I have no objection to such an extinction.” (Har- 
riet Martineau’s Autobiography, Amer. ed., vol. ii. pp. 556, 597.) 

Thousands of intelligent persons in our age have gone down the 
same path from the same starting-point. For one who stands in 
the full light of Christian experience the doctrine of necessity may 
have little danger. But for those who have not attained a per- 
sonal knowledge of the Christian realities it is full of peril. It 
seems strange that men like Dr. Hodge do not realize this fact. 
They think that their doctrine is harmless because it differs from 
that of the non-theistic advocates of necessity in putting a personal 
God behind the necessity. But they forget that the existence of 
such a God cannot be proved from the stand-point of necessity. 
Men, left to themselves, will accept the necessity without the per- 
sonal God. 


Note 22, Pace 87. 


The doctrine of freedom presented in the text is that which has 
emerged from the century of discussion on the subject of the will, 
carried on by our American theologians. In no other country 
has this subject received such attention and profound thought. 
While Edwards’s determinism has given much aid and comfort 
to the common enemy, it has not been wholly evil in its effects, It 


414 APPENDIX. 


has led to a fuller examination of the whole subject. Edwards was 
one of those great men who know how to state an old problem in 
new form, and to lay down distinctions and principles which open 
the way for new solutions. The work of such men is not to be 
estimated simply by the results to which they come themselves; 
we must look also at its effects upon others. The old doctrine 
of freedom fell into disrepute on account of its connection with 
the theory of the indifference of the will. To this theory Edwards 
gave the death-blow, and it is not strange that he went to the op- 
posite extreme. But the result has been to discover that higher 
statement of the truth which unites the valid elements in both the 
doctrines, that of indeterminism and that of determinism. 

I know no better statement of the true doctrine of freedom than 
that which is given by Dr. Harris in his Philosophical Basis of 
Theism (pp. 849-407). To this I refer those who desire a fuller 
view of the position taken in the lecture, 

I would call especial attention to the distinction between choice 
and volition, which was first brought out clearly by our American 
writers. A careful observance of this distinction will remove 
many of the difficulties which beset the thoughtful mind in its 
examination of this subject. The best modern theologians and 
philosophers recognize this distinction, though not commonly 
using the terms by which we describe it. Cf. Dorner, System der 
christlichen Sittenlehre, p. 119: ‘‘Die Entschliessung ist nicht 
mehr ein einfaches, mit Unwillkiirlichkeit vermisclhtes Begehren 
oder Verlangen, sondern ein potenzirtes, ein inneres Wollen, das 
zu seinem Inhalt hat ein anderes nachfolgendes Wollen, nimlich 
ein den Zweck realisiren sollendes Wollen oder ein Wollen der 
That. Das ist ein. Wollen des Wollens, ein Wollen in zweiter 
Potenz.” The first ‘‘ Wollen” is the choice ; the second, the voli- 
tion. 

It is to be noted that the true doctrine of freedom does not ignore 
the limitations of this power. In order that the power of choice 
should be exercised, the conditions of choice must be present. 
These, however, come from without, and are connected with that 
power of action over which man has no absolute control. Accord- 
ingly, freedom in the sense of the power of choice is entirely con- 
sistent with inability. The sinner in his unconverted state is free 
in the sense of possessing the power of choice, but he is unable 
on account of sin to perform any spiritual good accompanying 
salvation, Let this inability be counteracted by divine grace, and 


APPENDIX. 415 


his power of choice asserts itself; but it will not do so before, 
though all the time there. 

It is also to be noted that our great permanent choices, in which 
freedom persists through long periods of time, to a great extent de- 
termine our subordinate choices and volitions. But the former 
are comparatively few in number. 

Moreover, it is not to be forgotten that freedom is a matter of 
development, like the other powers and capacities of man. See 
Dorner’s Christliche Sittenlehre, pp. 257-262; also his Glaubens- 
lehre, vol. ii., pp. 163-181. Eng. trans., vol. iii., p. 59 seq. 


Note 238, Pace 89. 
Data of Ethics, Amer. ed., p. 28. 


Nore 24, Pacer 90. 
Ibid., p. 138. 


Nore 25, Paces 91. 


Dorner, Christliche Sittenlehre, p. 218: ‘‘ Nicht sowohl der 
Mensch hat das Gewissen, als das Gewissen hat den Menschen.” 


Nore 26, Pags 91. 
Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, p. 68: ‘“‘ What Act of Legislature 
was there that thow shouldst be happy ? A little while ago thou 
hadst no right to be at all. What if thou wert born and predes- 


{?? 


tined not to be happy, but to be unhappy ! 


Note 27, Pace 94. 


Our New England theology reached this position in the systems 
of Hopkins and Emmons, systems which have been rightly regard- 
ed as pantheistic in their tendency. Cf. Dwight’s Theology, New 
York, 1830, vol. i., p. 254.seq. Hopkins says (System of Doctrines, 
Boston, 1811, vol., i, p. 114): ‘‘ Though there be things which 
are in themselves evil, even in their own nature and tendency, such 
as sin and misery; yet considered in their connection with the 
whole, and as they are necessary in the best system to accomplish 
the greatest good, the most important and best ends, they are, in 
this view, desirable, good, and not evil. And in this view, ‘there 
is no absolute evil in the universe.’ There are evils, in themselves 
considered ; but considered as connected with the whole, they are 
not evil, but good. As shades are necessary in a picture to render 
it most complete and beautiful, they are, in this view and connec- 


416 APPENDIX. 


tion, desirable ; and the picture would be imperfect and marred 
were they not included in it ; yet considered separately, and un- 
connected with the whole, they have no beauty, but deformity, 
and are very disagreeable. So moral evil is, in itself considered, 
in its own nature and tendency, most odious, hurtful, and unde- 
sirable ; but in the hands of omnipotence, infinite wisdom, and 
goodness, it may be introduced into the most perfect plan and 
system, and so disposed and counteracted in its nature and ten- 
dency, as to be a necessary part of it, in order to render it most 
complete and desirable.” 


Note 28, Pace 94, 


Hegel says, speaking of the account of the Fall in Genesis: 
“Der Zustand der Unschuld, dieser paradiesische Zustand, ist der 
thierische. Das Paradies ist ein Park, wo nur Thiere und nicht 
die Menschen bleiben kénnen. Denn das Thier ist mit Gott eins, 
aber nur an sich. Nur der Mensch ist Geist, d. h. fiir sich selbst. 
Dieses Fiirsichsein, dieses Bewusstsein, ist aber zugleich die Tren- 
nung von dem allgemeinen géttlichen Geist. Der Siindenfall ist 
daher den ewige Mythus des Menschen wodurch er eben Mensch 
wird” (Philosophie der Geschichte, p. 233, quoted by Luthardt, 
Komp. der Dogm., 7th ed., p. 155). Cf. Hegel’s Philosophie der 
Religion, vol. ii., pp. 257-277, and the comments on his doctrine 
of sin in Miller’s Christliche Lehre von der Btinde, 5th ed., vol. i., 
p. 541 seq. 

Nore 29, Pace 95. 


Spencer, Data of Ethics, Amer. ed., p. 25. 


Note 30, Pacer 95. 


Dr. Raleigh, in an address published in the New York Jnde- 
pendent. I have been unable to recover the date. 


Norte 31, Pace 98. 
See Bushnell’s Christian Nurture, 1861, p. 90 seq. 


Nore 32, Pace 101. 


The evolutionary optimism may be so worked out as to become 
substantially theistic. Cf. John Fiske’s Destiny of Man, and Idea 
of God. 

Note 33, Paar 101, 


Augustin’s Confessions, Bk. I., ch. i., sect. 1, 


APPENDIX. 417 


Note 34, Paar 108. 
Cf. Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik, 2d ed. , vol. ii., p. 656 
SOQ este 
Nore 35, Pace 103. 
George Eliot (Marian Evans Cross) : 
‘*O may I join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence ; live 
In pulses stirred to generosity, 
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
For miserable aims that end with self, 
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars 
And with their mild persistence urge man’s search 
To vaster issues.” 


> 


NOTES TO LECTURE IV. 


Note 1, Pace 110. 
Lecture I., p. 24 seq. 


Note 2, Pacer 112. 


There are many reasons why I should like to take for my typi- 
cal case that of the Christian child who from the first has been 
enfolded in the parental faith, born of holy seed, consecrated and 
baptized in infancy, a child of the covenant, educated for Christ; 
carried from stage to stage of childhood with no real wanderin g 
from the fold, so that conversion, if not a process rather than a 
crisis, is at most the acceptance by the mature will of an inheri- 
tance enjoyed from the first and never lost. Theoretically this is 
the normal case. It is the ideal toward which we are rapidly mov- 
ing. In the last days it will doubtless be universal. But at present 
it is far rarer than it should be, and for our purpose, which is 
scientific as well as practical, it is better to take the case, which 
is more common, of a Christian experience which does not begin 
until a certain degree of maturity is attained, after a period of 
more or less decided sin and separation from the fold of Christ, 
and which thus begins in what is, in the strictest sense, a conver- 


ra 


418 APPENDIX, 


sion, a crisis involving a change of the whole tendency and aim 
of life. 

Frank, starting from the Lutheran doctrine of baptismal regen- 
eration, finds it necessary to distinguish between regeneration, 
in which the germ of divine grace is implanted in the heart, and 
conversion, when this germ fructifies and manifests itself through 
the action of the will and the external change thus brought about. 
In hisdevelopment of the facts involved in the Christian’s cer- 
tainty he does not view conversion so much in the light of a crisis 
as of a change effected in the man. A conversion that antedates 
conscious experience would offer no barrier to the use of the fact 
in the system of Christian certainty. The new I and the old ex- 
ist alongside of each other in the Christian, the former on the 
throne and the latter thrust from it, and this is proof that the 
change has been wrought at some time and somehow. (System der 
christlichen Gewissheit, 2d ed., vol. i., p. 118 seq. Evans’s trans., 
p. 108 seq.) 

NOTE 38, PAGE 113, 

Cf. Dorner, System der christlichen Glaubenslehre, vol. i., p. 
131: ‘‘ Nun bietet sich innerhalb der Christenheit dreierlei dar, 
was Organ oder Vehikel der Gottesgemeinschaft, Reprisentation 
der Nahe Gottes bei dem Menschen sein will : die relégiése Gemein- 
schaft, sei es in freier socialer Form, sei es in organisirter als 
Kirche ; sodann Hetlige Schriften als Denkmaler oder Urkunden 
gottlicher Offenbarung oder des Wortes Gottes an die Menschen ; 
endlich heilige Handiungen symbolischer Art, welche als Gottge- 
stiftete verheissen, dass mit ihnen eine géttliche Mittheilung sich 
fiir den Empfanglichen verbinde, d. h. die Sacramente.” See the 
whole passage. (Eng. trans., vol. i., p. 144.) 


Note 4, Pace 117. 


Attention should also be called to the fact that the Scripture 
writers spoke out of their own personal experience of the Christian 
realities. This experience was a normal one. Their inspiration 
did not raise them above the imperfection common to Christians, 
What it did was to enable them to describe the experience in its 
truth and to set alongside of it the ideal of the Christian life. 


Note 5, Pace 119. 


Frank treats the Word, the church, and the sacraments, as trans- 
eunt objects of faith, and considers them first in his second vol- 


APPENDIX. 419 


ume, after he has discussed the immanent and transcendent objects 
of faith. This is in accordance with his purpose, which is not 
apologetical but aims at the analysis of the contents of Christian 
experience for the sole object of showing to the Christian the 
grounds upon which his faith is based. It seems to me, however, 
that even for this purpose it would be better to begin with an 
account of the instrumentalities by which the divine grace was 
first communicated and is now maintained in the believer’s soul. 
For the purpose of these lectures the method followed is certainly 
the only satisfactory one. 


Norte 6, Pace 124, 


Cf. what Frank says on the congruousness of Christianity to 
man’s nature, vol. i., p. 127 seq. Frank is speaking of the 
Christian life as already established, but much that he says applies 
to the subject treated in the text. See Dorner, Die Mansel-Mau- 
rice’sche Controverse, Jahrb. fiir deutsche Theologie, vol. vi., 
p- 410. 

NOTES) PAGE 125, 


It is to this period that we must refer the striking words of 
Coleridge (Aids to Reflection, Works, New York, 1853, vol. i., p. 
130 seq.) : ‘‘ Awakened by the cock-crow (a sermon, a calamity, 
a sick-bed, or a providential escape) the Christian pilgrim sets 
out in the morning twilight, while yet the truth (the vduos TéAELos 
6 THs éAevdepias) is below the horizon. Certain necessary conse- 
quences of his past life and his present undertaking will be seen 
by the refraction of its light ; more will be apprehended and con- 
jectured. The phantasms, that had predominated during the long 
hours of darkness are still busy.” 

Christian started on his pilgrimage to the heavenly city long 
before he found peace; the first part of the way was made with 
the burden still on his back, and he did not lose it until he came 
to the foot of the cross. This was Bunyan’s own experience. In 
every awakened soul God’s Spirit is at work, but it is not yet a 
converted soul. 

Note 8, Pace 128. 

It will be understood that I use the terms choice and volition 
in a sense not accepted by all philosophers. By choice is meant 
the selection of an end or object of action ; by volition, the ex- 
ecutive act of the will by which the choice is carried into effect, 
See Lecture III., p. 80 seq. 


490 APPENDIX. 


Nore 9, Pace 129. 


The truth is, this idea of faith goes back to the early church. 
For Augustin’s view, see Lecture I., Note 12. Cf. Julius Miller, 
Dogmatische Abhandlungen :—Gedanken tiber Glauben und Wis- 
sen. According to Thomas Aquinas, ‘‘ Faith is an act of the 
intellect, which assents to divine truth in the strength of the will 
moved by God through grace” (Secunda Secunde, qu. 2. art. 9. 
Kahnis, Luth. Dogmatik, 1st ed., vol. ii., p. 310). In spite of An- 
selm’s,deeper view of the relation of experience to faith, he holds 
substantially the same view of faith as Aquinas; he represents it 
‘‘as a knowledge, which first receives life through the will, caus- 
ing us to strive toward what we believe” (Monol. c. 67 seq. 
Kahnis, ib., p. 309). 

The Reformation failed to purge out the rationalistic leaven 
contained in this definition of faith. Thus Calvin. says: ‘‘ We 
shall have a perfect definition of faith, if we say that it is a 
steadfast and assured knowledge of God’s kindness toward us, 
which being grounded upon the truth of. the free promise in 
Christ, is both revealed to our minds and sealed in our hearts 
by the Holy Spirit ” (Institutes, Bk. IIT., ch. ii., sect. 7). AJl the 
more remarkable is the definition of the Westminster Confession, 
given in the text. The rationalistic reaction toward the close of 
the seventeenth century brought the old intellectualistic concep- 
tion of faith into renewed currency. Unfortunately it still sur- 
vives. Locke, who generally states the rationalistic position in 
its clearest form, thus defines reason and faith : ‘‘ Reason, 
as contradistinguished to faith, I take to be the discovery of the 
certainty or probability of such. proposition or truths, which the 
mind arrives at by deduction from such ideas which it has got by 
the use of its natural faculties, viz., by sensation or reflection. 
Faith, on the other side, is the assent to any proposition, not thus 
made out by the deductions of reason, but upon the credit of 
the proposer, as coming from God, in some extraordinary way of 
communication. This way of discovering truths to men we call 
revelation’ (Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV., 
ch. xviii., sect. 2). 


Nore 10, Pacer 129. 


See an article on Faith, by Dr. Mark Hopkins, in the Princeton 
Lfteview, September, 1878, p. 511 seq. 


, ee 


APPENDIX. 421 


Note 11, Pace 130. 


‘Der Gegenstand unsers Glaubens ist Christus, der menschge- 
wordene Gottessohn, der sich selbst gegeben hat zu unsrer Erlé- 
sung, der einige Mittler unsrer Gemeinschaft mit Gott. . . . Er 
selbst ist der Gegenstand des seligmachenden Glaubens, algo nicht 
eigentlich die Thatsachen seines Lebens, seine iibernatiirliche 
Erzeugung, seine heiligen Werke und Wunder, sein Leiden, Ster- 
ben, Auferstehen, seine Himmelfahrt, sondern Er in seiner ewig 
lebendigen, sich wirksam mittheilenden Persdnlichkeit als der 
uns Gegenwartige, Er als der verherrlichte Heiland, der er jetzt 
und allezeit ist, seitdem es eine an ihn glaubende Gemeinde giebt” 
(Miler, Dogmatische Abhandlungen, p. 4). 


Nott 12, Page 181. 


2 Cor. v.17; Gal. vi. 15; John v. 24; 1 John iii. 14; Rom. 
vi. 18; Eph. v. 14; John i. 12, 13; John iii. 3-8; Tit. iii. 5; 1 
John iii. 9; Eph. iv. 22-24; Col. iii. 9, 10; Psalm li. 10; Ezek. 
Xi: 

Note 18, Page 181. 


Thus Frank everywhere. He speaks of conversion as an ‘“‘ Um- 
wandlung seines (des Subjectes) sittlichen Lebensbestandes, ver- 
moge deren ein neues Ich . . . sich fortan unterscheidet,” 
etc. (vol. i., p. 118. Evans’s trans., p. 108). Martensen uses the 
same terminology, and the German theologians generally. 


Norte 14, Pace 182. 
Frank, vol. i., p. 102. (Evans’s trans., p. 99.) 


Note 15, Pace 134, 


Cf. Frank, vol. i., p. 121: ‘‘ Side by side with the bent of willof 
the old man stands that of the new ; in such wise, indeed, that the 
latter occupies the centre of his being, and thence as ruler deter- 
mines the same, but for that very reason is engaged in constant 
conflict with the former bent of will, which continues to exist. 
In this manifestation and operation is now immediately displayed 
the essence of the moral transformation, as consisting in the fact 
that that new point which is the source of the personal self-deter- 
mining, the new I, has been planted in the subject, and that it 
has been installed in the place where hitherto the old I had held 
its post and the throne of its dominion” (Evans’s trans., p. 116). 


499 APPENDIX, 


Note 16, Pace 135. 


Frank, vol. i., p. 150 seq. : ‘‘ That which was folly for the eye 
of the natural intellect is now intelligible, is comprehended by 
the spiritual Tas ‘wisdom among them that are perfect ;’ not 
wisdom of this eon, but as wisdom of a higher order of life in 
which the I of regeneration stands, and which is quite as little an 
arbitrary and accidental one as that of the lower cosmical hemi- 
sphere. The I, however, has, as standard of the necessity and 
criterion of the wisdom in the order of the reality which it has 
experienced and which it knows in the form of the notion, nothing 
immediately but this reality itself, which by itself evidences itself 
to him as truth and necessity ; or since that reality is the I of re- 
generation itself, the new I is itself for itself guarantee of the 
truth, standard of the necessity, judge of the wisdom” (Evans’s 
trans., p. 143 seq.). 


Note 17, Pace 135. 


Jonathan Edwards says, in his Treatise on the Religious Affec- 
tions (Works, New York, 1880, vol. v., p. 172 seq.): ‘* All 
gracious persons have a solid, full, thorough, and effectual con- 
viction of the truth of the great things of the Gospel. : 
Their conviction is an effectual conviction ; so that the great, 
spiritual, mysterious, and invisible things of the Gospel, have the 
influence of real and certain things upon them ; they have the 
weight and power of real things in their hearts. . . . With 
respect to Christ’s being the son of God and Saviour of the world, 
and the great things he has revealed concerning himself and his 
Father and another world, they have not only a predominating 
opinion that these things are true, and so yield their assent as they 
do in many other matters of doubtful speculation ; but they see 
that it is really so; their eyes are opened, so that they see that 
really Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Edwards’s 
mysticism is described in Lecture VIL, p. 262 seq. It is to be 
regretted that, in spite of such passages as that just quoted, Ed- 
wards’s prevailing conception of Christianity is that of a system 
of doctrines rather than of divine realities. Consequently, his 
“spiritual relish,” or sense by which the Christian apprehends 
the things of religion, has truth rather than facts for its objects. 


APPENDIX. 493 


Nore 18, Pace 136. 


Works, as above, vol. i., p.61. The passage occurs in Edwards’s 
account of his conversion, the whole of which has its direct bear- 
ing upon the subject before us, It is oneof the most beautiful de- 
scriptions of the genesis of the Christian life ever written. 


Norte 19, Pace 188, 


The objection may be made to the description which I have 
given of the great change of conversion, that the picture is 
painted in colors too bright. In many cases there is no such de- 
cided transformation. The Christian life often begins in mere 
glimmerings of the dawn. It is, to take a scriptural figure, a 
bruised reed and smoking flax, which seem to have hardly the 
name of reality. Yet we cannot doubt that in such instances 
there is often a true beginning of the life in Christ, the dawning 
of a light that shines more and more unto the perfect day. Iam 
not disposed to deny the great differences in the experience of 
Christians. Few may have such an experience as that of Edwards, 
referred to in the previous note. But I cannot but think that I 
have fairly represented the typical experience. And even in those 
cases where the transformation is less evident, I am inclined to 
think that it is in reality no less great and wonderful. 


Note 20, Pace 189. 


Frank, vol. i., p., 126: ‘‘ The I as object of the experience, and 
the I as subject of the same, are here so directly associated to- 
gether that the I only needs to affirm itself in order to express the 
reality of the fact of the moral transformation” (Evans’s trans., 
p. 121). 

Note 21, Pace 1389, 


I have followed Frank in basing the evidence of Christian ex- 
perience upon the great transformation wrought in regeneration 
and conversion. Dorner will not accept this position ; Frank, 
he says (Glaubenslehre, vol. i., p. 40), ‘‘has only a subjective 
principle of knowledge, but no objective one.” ‘‘ But thus,” he 
adds, ‘‘ the verification of the Christian contents and of the cer- 
tainty concerning them still falls short of objectivity and is not 
raised above mere subjectivity.” Dorner declares that regenera- 
tion is a matter of growth, and that it is justification alone that is 


424 APPENDIX. 


complete and perfected in its kind according to the Christian and 
especially the evangelical conception (ibid.). He says: ‘‘ God 
must by logical necessity be the highest guarantee and source of 
all true certainty ; our weak state of faith, our good subjective 
frame, is not our final source of certainty concerning God and 
Christ’’ (ibid., p. 41). ‘‘ There is an immediate knowledge of 
God, not merely an only secondary knowledge mediated by in- 
ferences from the effect to the cause” (ibid.). ‘“We do not first 
become certain of God by being conscious of ourselves as regen- 
erate and converted, but because we experience God in Christ as 
being for us, we know ourselves to be redeemed ” (ibid.), Again he 
says: ‘‘ Faith already has the immediate spiritual intuition of God 
as Father; it has knowledge not simply of itself, of its being re- 
deemed, but also, and that primarily, of the redeeming God” 
(ibid., p. 161). Under these circumstances it is not strange that 
Dorner reproaches Frank with underrating the testémonium 
Spiritus Sancti internum (ibid., p. 42. Cf. Eng. trans., vol. i., 
pp. 54-57, and p. 174). 

There is undoubtedly a serious difference of principle between 
the two theologians. I began the preparation of these lectures 
holding the view of Dorner, as was natural for one who had 
been a student of this great theologian and for many years @ 
reader of his books. But I have been brought, slowly but inevi- 
tably, by the study of my subject in the light of experience and 
Scripture, to the conclusion that Dorner is wrong and Frank right. 
In asserting that we have an immediate intuition of God, Dorner 
seems to me to cross the line that separates the true mysticism 
from the false. I do not see how we can know any objective 
reality, whether physical or spiritual, except through its effects 
in our consciousness. This knowledge is real and immediate, 
though not unmediated ; but it is very different from a direct in- 
tuition of the object. Such subjectivity is essential to knowledge. 
It is the condition of all objectivity and does not in any way stand 
opposed to it. 

I’ shall return to this point in a later lecture. Let me say here 
that the position I take is sustained by the teachings of the older 
theologians respecting the witness of the Spirit to the believer’s 
adoption. They regard this not as an immediate communication 
of knowledge respecting the believer’s relation to God, but as an 
attestation through the redemptive effects produced by the Spirit 
in the soul, See Baxter, Works, 1830, vol. xx., p. 49seq. Ed- 


APPENDIX. 425 


wards, Religious Affections, Works, 1830, vol. v., p. 121 seq., and 
p. 314 seq. In the latter passage Edwards says: ‘‘ The witness or 
seal of the Spirit consists in the effect of the Spirit of God in the 
heart, in the implantation and exercise of grace there, and so con- 
sists in experience. And it is beyond doubt that this seal of the 
Spirit is the highest kind of evidence of the saints’ adoption that 
ever they obtain.” 

I cannot too strongly emphasize the importance of careful 
thought and study upon this point. 


Note 22, Paas 141. 
Watts’s Works, Leeds, 1801, vol. i., p. 24. 


Note 28, Pacer 141. 


Frank, volp ily p..325: “<The Christian ©. 4.) . who has'ex- 
perienced regeneration and appropriated it in conversion, is abso- 
lutely and without exception conscious that it is the opposite of 
natural development; and if before his conversion he may have 
supposed himself capable of effecting this transformation, yet as 
soon as conversion takes place the fact is present to his conscious- 
ness, that the result has neither proceeded from him nor could 
do so ” (Evans’s trans., p. 307). 


Notst 24, Pages 141, 


Frank makes no use of the natural revelation of God. Accord- 
ingly, he is obliged to prove in his System of Christian Certainty, 
that the cause of regeneration and conversion is God, without 
being able to verify the fact by the natural knowledge of God. It 
seems to me that this is a grave defect, for unless a man already 
knows God, I do not see how he can recognize him as the cause 
at work in his conversion. Frank endeavors to show that the 
cause of regeneration is transcendent, absolute, and personal, all 
from the nature of the effects. It does not seem to me that he 
succeeds. See vol. i., p. 320 seq. (Evans’s trans., p. 308 seq.) 


Notre 25, Pace 148. 


Works, vol. xx., p. 186. Cf. Watts, Works, vol. i., p. 22: 
‘““The Gospel of Christ is like a seal or signet, of such inim- 
itable and divine graving that no created power can counter- 
feit it ; and when the Spirit of God has stamped this Gospel on 
the soul, there are so many holy and happy lines drawn or im. 


496 APPENDIX, 


pressed thereby ; so many sacred signatures and divine features 
stamped on the mind, that give certain evidence, both of a heav- 
enly signet and a heavenly operator.” 


Notes 26, Paar 146. 


Harris, Self-Revelation of God, p. 468 seq. : ‘‘ By the influence 
of the Spirit we are brought into immediate connection with the 
Lord, as the rays of the sun falling on us bring us into immediate 
connection with the sun. In that influence the energy of redeem- 
ing grace strikes on our souls; we are brought into contact 
with the heart of God and feel the throbbing of his love knocking 
evermore for a responsive love. ‘Then, rejoicing in God, we rise 
up new witnesses from our own experience of the power of God 
to redeem from condemnation and sin. And through all the 
Christian ages every one who has had the like experience has be- 
come a witness to Christ revealed in his own consciousness by the 
Spirit of God.” 

Note 27, Pace 147, 

In the account of the Christian’s knowledge of the Spirit, the 
Christ, and the Father givenin the text, I have diverged somewhat 
widely from Frank, whose analysis of the trinitarian and christo- 
logical elements in the Christian experience seems to me artificial 
and unsatisfactory (vol. i., p. 843 seq. Evans’s trans., p. 824 seq.). 
Frank’s method leads him to the attempt to analyze the Christian 
consciousness without the aid of the Scriptures, to which he refers » 
only when he comes to the transeunt objects of faith. But I doubt 
whether it is possible to understand the Christian experience 
except through the aid of the objective Word, which interprets to 
us what otherwise would be very dark. The method I have fol- 
lowed is that with which the New-Testament furnishes us, and I 
think the results are fully verified by the experience of the Chris- 
tian. 

Note 28, Pace 152. 

Watts, Works, 1801, vol. i., p. 21. Ibid., p. 32: ‘‘ It is Christ 
Jesus living in the soul by the power of his own Spirit ; Christ 
Jesus, who is the eternal principle of life, and his Spirit which is 
the eternal Spirit ; and where he hath begun to dwell he shall for- 
ever inhabit.” See also Frank, vol. i., p. 280seq. (Evans’s trans., 
p. 219 seq.) It is to be noted that this seai or witness of the 
Spirit extends not only to the future life, but also to the resur- 
rection body. 


APPENDIX. 497 


Norte 29, Paar 153. 


As I have closed the lecture with a prayer, I cannot refrain from 
giving in this note that with which Baxter concludes the discourse 
on the Witness of the Spirit in his Unreasonableness of Infidelity 
(Works, 1830, vol. xx., p. 202): ‘‘Oh, that my dear Redeemer 
would pour out upon my soul a fuller measure of his Spirit, to 
enlighten and enliven me, and make me more conformable to his 
image and will, and to keep continual possession within me for 
himself ; that I might always bear about me a living, effectual 
testimony of Christ in my breast, and may have yet more of this 
advantage against temptations, which I have here opened unto 
others : and whatsoever I have spoken mistakingly of this Spirit, 
or defectively and unworthily of its admirable, curious, and yet: 
unsearchable works, the Lord of mercy forgive it, with the rest of 
my transgressions, in the blood of his Well-beloved !” Amen. 


NOTES TO LECTURE V. 
Norte 1, Pace 154. 


The plan chosen for the development of the experimental evi- 
dence, according to which the genesis of the proof is first treated, 
then its growth, and after that its scientific verification, necessarily 
involves some repetition. This, however, is more apparent than 
real, since the facts are treated from quite different points of view, 
and the advantages gained by the method here followed seem to 
me quite to outweigh the disadvantages, 


Note 2, PAGE 157. 


Cf, Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 355. See what 
is said of the difference between choice and determination. 


Nots 8, Pace 160. 


Cf. The Law of Love and Love as a Law, by Mark Hopkins, 
7th ed., p. 99 seq. President Hopkins has successfully vindicated 
the legitimacy of the true self-love, pp. 101 seq., 168 seq. 


Nots 4, Pace 166. 
Watts, Works, 1801, vol. i., p. 31. 


428 APPENDIX. 


Note 5, Pace 167. 
See Lecture IV., p. 140 seq. 


Nore 6, Pace 171. 
Paradise Regained, Bk. I., 1. 460-64. 


Nore 7, PAes 171. 
The Way of Life, by Charles Hodge, p. 328 seq. 


Notes 8, Pages 171. 
Lecture IV., p. 142 seq. 


Note 9, Pace 173. 
Works, 1830, vol. xx., p. 155. 


Note 10, Paes 178. 


‘‘There is a knowing of the truth as it is in Jesus, as it isin a 
Christlike nature, as it is in that sweet, mild, humble, and loving 
Spirit ef Jesus, which spreads itself like a morning sun upon the 
souls of good men, full of light and life. It profits little to know 
Christ himself after the flesh ; but he gives his Spirit to good men, 
that searcheth the deep things of God” (Dr. John Smith’s Select 
Discourses, quoted by Barclay, Apology, New York, 1827, p. 24). 


Notes 11, Paes 173. 


Faith ‘‘ gives a particular experimental knowledge of Christ and 
acquaintance with him. It causes the soul to find all that is spoken 
of him in the Word, and his beauty there represented, to be abun- 
dantly true, makes it really taste of his sweetness, and by that 
possesses the heart more strongly with his love, persuading it of 
the truth of those things, not by reasons and arguments, but by 
an inexpressible kind of evidence that they only know that have 
it” (Archbishop Leighton, on First Peter, ch. i., v. 8). 


Note 12, Page 174. 
Works, vol. xx., p. 155 seq. 


Note 13, Pace 1%5. 
See Lecture IV., Note 21. Dorner correctly describes the Chris- 
tian consciousness respecting this point, but he does not give the 
correct and scientific analysis of it. 


APPENDIX. 429 


‘ Note 14, Paces 178. 
See Lecture IV., p. 147 seq. 


Note 15, Pager 179. 


Frank, vol.i., p. 489: ‘‘ Viewed from the stand-point of church 
history, it would involve a contradiction of well-ascertained facts, 
if it were supposed that the statements of the trinitarian dogma 
were the simple result of faith turning to the Scripture and repro- 
ducing its testimonies respecting the divine nature of the Father, 
the Son, and the Spirit. On the contrary, the formation of the 
dogma was accomplished in such a way that the self-expression 
of the faith which was originated by, and exists through, the 
actual influence of the tripersonal absolute God, recognized itself 
and proclaimed itself in the language of the Scripture respecting 
the divine nature as Father, Son, and Spirit. The one entered in- 
to a relation of reciprocity with the other, the one upheld and 
conditioned the other: the Christian subject learned to under- 
stand the contents of his experience by the help of the Scripture, 
and eagerly seized on the testimony of the same respecting the 
tripersonal God as congruent with his experience, and the Script- 
ure in its utterances respecting the one personal God, the Father, 
the Son, and the Spirit, was understood, apprehended, and inter- 
preted according to the standard of the inwardly constraining ex- 
perience, which became conscious and clear regarding its con- 
tents by the aid of the Scripture.” (Evans's trans., p. 415.) 


Note 16, Page 182. 
Wordsworth’s Excursion, Bk. I. 


Norte 17, Pace 183. 
Nature and the Supernatural, p. 452. 


Nore 18, Pace 190. ' 


Cf. Frank, vol. i., p. 85 seq. Evans’s trans., p. 83 seq. Dor- 
ner, Syst. der christ]. Glaubenslehre, p. 62 seq. 


Nore 19, Pace 191. 


‘The Christian believer tests his experience, his beliefs, and his 
interpretations of Scripture by the experience and thinking of all 
Christian people as disclosed in the hymns and liturgies, the con- 
fessions and creeds, the devotional and doctrinal literature, the 


430 APPENDIX. 


biographies and histories, which express the best thought and 
wisdom, the most devout worship, the truest Christian living of 
the past. He is thus able to test and broaden his own beliefs and 
his own interpretations of Scripture by the ‘ capitalized experience’ 
of all Christian people’ (Harris, Self-Revelation of God, p. 34 
seq.). 

Note 20, PaGcE 193. 


Dorner, vol. i., p. 59 : ‘‘ So ist begreiflich, dass auf dem Gebiete 
der Religion auch fiir das wissenschaftliche Bewusstsein vom 
Inhalt der religidsen Erfahrungen ein weit héherer Grad von Ge- 
wissheit méglich ist, als auf dem des endlichen Erkennens.” 
(Eng. trans., vol. i., p. 73.) 


Note 21, Paes 194. 


The thoughtful, vigorous, and very interesting Merrick Lect- 
ures of Bishop Randolph 8. Foster, on the Philosophy of Chris- 
tian Experience, did not come into my hands until this book was 
nearly through the press, too late to give them the attention which 
they deserve. 

I concluded the notes on the last lecture with a prayer of Bax- 
ter’s. Let me here quote, as a fitting close to this lecture on the 
growth of the experimental evidence, a part of another prayer of 
the same profoundly spiritual theologian : ‘‘ Thou hast mercifully 
given me the witness in myself; not an unreasonable persuasion 
in my mind, but that renewed nature, those holy and heavenly de- 
sires and delights, which surely can come from none but thee. 
And oh, how much more have I perceived in many of thy servants 
than in myself! Thou hast cast my lot among the souls whom 
Christ hath healed. I have daily conversed with those whom he 
hath raised from the dead.” Also he prays to the Holy Spirit : 
‘‘Be in me the resident witness of my Lord, the author of my 
prayers, the spirit of adoption, the seal of God, and the earnest of 
my inheritance. Let not my nights be so long, and my days so short, 
nor sin eclipse those beams which have often illuminated my soul. 
Without thee books are senseless scrawls, studies are dreams, learn- 
ing is a glow-worm, and wit is but wantonness, impertinency, and 
folly. . . . Make me the more heavenly, by how much the fast- 
er [ am hastening to heaven ; and let my last thoughts, words, and 
works on earth be likest to those which shall be my first in the 
state of glorious immortality, where the kingdom is delivered up 


APPENDIX. 431 
to the Father, and God will forever be all, and in all; of whom 
and through whom and to whom are all things, to whom be glory 
forever. Amen” (vol. xxi., p. 892 seq.). 


NOTES*TO LECTURE: Vi. 


Nore 1, Pace 199, 
Quoted by Grau, Der Beweis des Glaubens, vol. i., p. 83. 


Note 2, Pace 199, 


Cf. Frank, Syst. der christlichen Gewissheit, 2d. ed., vol. i., p. 
58 seq. Evans’s trans., p. 57 seq. Dorner, Syst. der christlichen 
Glaubenslehre, vol. i., p. 44 seq. Eng. trans., vol. i., p. 58 seq. 


Note 3, PacE 200. 


Even Locke, whose tendency is to minimize our certainty with 
respect to objective realities, admits that our ‘sensitive know]l- 
edge of particular existence” goes beyond “‘bare probability ” 
(Essay concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV., ch. ii., sect. 14), 


Note 4, Pace 200. 


‘“‘ The spirit by reflection upon the experience once made and 
preserved in the memory, or upon the intuition to which it has 
surrendered itself, forms an intellectual or mental image of the 
thing experienced, which can continue to exist even without the 
continuance of the contact and the subjective affection, and this 
process of reflection likewise, although now mediate, can partici- 
pate in that original certainty” (Dorner, vol. i., p. 56). Dorner 
also says (p. 58): ‘‘ While in the cognition of finite things imme- 
diate intuition or contact with the things cannot be renewed at 
every moment, because that would require their constant pres- 
ence, the case is quite different with respect to the matter of reli- 
gion. Since God is omnipresent, contact with him can be sought 
at every moment in prayer and contemplation, yea, it will always 
remain the truth that we live and move and have our being in 
him as the perennial omnipresent ground of our existence.” (Eng. 
trans., vol. i., p. 70 seq., p. 73.) 


432 APPENDIX. 


Note 5, Pace 201. 


Cardinal Newman clearly brings out the difference between real 
and notional knowledge in his Grammar of Assent. He says 
(Amer. ed., 1870, p. 18): ‘‘ Apprehension . . . has two sub- 
ject-matters, according as language expresses things external to us, 
or our own thoughts, so is apprehension real or notional. It is 
notional in the grammarian, it is real in the experimentalist. The 
grammarian has to determine the force of words and phrases ; he 
has to master the structure of sentences and the composition of 
paragraphs ; he has*to compare language with language, to as- 
certain the common ideas expressed under different idiomatic 
forms, and to achieve the difficult work of recasting the mind of 
an original author in the mould of a translation. On the other 
hand, the philosopher or experimentalist aims at investigating, 
questioning, ascertaining facts, causes, effects, actions, qualities ; 
these are things, and he makes his words distinctly subordinate to 
these, as means to an end.” 

The difference between real and notional knowledge is expressed 
by the Latin words cognoscere and intelligere. Cf. Neander, Der 
heilige Bernhard (Bibliothek theol. Klassiker), vol. i., p. 224. 


Note 6, Pace 202. 
Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, Introduction. 


Note 7%, PAGE 202. 


I am aware that there are some who will find fault with my use 
of the term probability. I employ it in its common meaning, as it 
stands opposed to certainty. This is the sense in which it is used by 
Butler in the passage quoted in the lecture. It is similarly defined 
by Locke (Essay, Bk. IV., ch. xv., sect. 4): ‘‘ Probability, then, 
being to supply the defect of our knowledge, and to guide us 
where that fails, is always conversant about propositions whereof 
we have no certainty, but only some inducements to receive them 
for true.” Of course for the agnostic who confines knowledge to 
the contents of consciousness all distinctions of certainty and prob- 
ability respecting real existence will be meaningless. 

There is a technical use of the term probability which has the 
sanction of good authority, but which produces confusion of 
thought when employed in ordinary scientific discussion. ‘‘ The 
word probable,” says Stewart (Elements, pt. II., ch. ii., sect. 4), 


APPENDIX. 433 


“does not imply any defictency in the proof, but only marks the 
particular nature of that proof, as contra-distinguished from an- 
other species of evidence. It is opposed not to what is certain, 
but to what admits of being demonstrated after the manner of 
the mathematicians.” See Fleming’s Vocabulary of Philosophy, 
4th ed., edited by Calderwood, New York, 1887, p. 322. Cf. 
Porter’s Human Intellect, p. 454 seq. If the term were to be 
used in this sense, all the evidence I am presenting would of 
course be probable. 
Nore 8, Page 203. 

‘“‘ Die Gewissheit lisst keine Steigerung oder Minderung zu, sie 
ist eben die Rube des Geistes in der Wahrheit, von keiner Furcht 
des Irrthums bewegt ” (Hettinger, Apologie des Christenthums, 
1885, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 4). This, however, is true only of the cer- 
tainty of the existence of the fact ; there is a growing certainty re- 
specting the nature and contents of the fact. 


Norte 9, Page 203. 


Cf. Porter’s Human Intellect, pp. 388-480. Frank, vol. i., pp. 
73-85. (Evans’s trans., pp. 72-83.) 


Note 10, Paar 207. 
Novum Organum, Lib. I., Aphorisms xxxviii-lxviii: “De 
idolis et notionibus falsis, quae mentes humanas obsident.” Lord 
Bacon’s Works, London, 1819, vol. viii., pp. 7-24. 


Norte 11, Pacer 207. 
Ibid., Lib. I., Aph. i: ‘‘ Homo, nature minister et interpres, tan- 
tum facit et intelligit, quantum, de nature ordine, re vel mente 
observaverit ; nec amplius scit, aut potest.” Works, vol. viii., p. 1. 


Note 12, Pace 207. 

Ibid., Lib. I., Aph. xxxvi: ‘‘ Restat vero nobis modus tradendi 
unus et simplex, ut hominesad ipsa particularia et eorum series 
et ordines adducamus ; et ut illi rursus imperent sibi ad tempus 
abnegationem notionum, et cum rebus ipsis consuescere incipiant.” 
Works, vol. viii., p. 7. 


Nore 13, Pace 207. 

Ibid., Preefatio: ‘‘ Consentaneum (ut videtur) existimantes, hoc 
ipsum (videlicet utrum aliquid sciri possit) non disputare sed ex- 
periri.” Works, vol. viii., p. xi. 

28 


434 APPENDIX. 


Note 14, Pace 208. 
Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 65 seq. 


Nore 15, Pace 208. 


Harris, Self-Revelation of God, p. 380: ‘‘ We are said to know 
in experience whatever is known in presentative intuition ; it may 
be either the mind itself in its several acts and states, or some 
reality which is not self. Whatever reality has come under our 
immediate observation is said to be known in experience. In 
other words, we know in experience whatever is or has been pre- 
sented in consciousness. What is known in experience may be 
also said to be known in consciousness.” 


Note 16, Paar 209. 


‘For divinity is something rather to be understood by a spiritual 
sensation than by any verbal description, as all things of sense and 
life are best known by sentient and vital faculties ; as the Greek 
philosopher hath well observed, everything is best known by that 
which bears a just resemblance and analogy with it ; and therefore 
the Scripture is wont to set forth a good life as the prolepsis and 
fundamental principle of divine science” (Dr. John Smith, Se- 
lect Discourses, quoted by Tulloch, Rational Theology in England 
in the Seventeenth Century, vol. ii., p. 142). 


Note 17, Pace 211. 


It will be objected that the sanctities of Christianity must be ap- 
proached in a different spirit and an altogether different way from 
that in which the scientific man enters upon the experimental in- 
vestigation of facts. This is perfectly true, and I cannot conceive 
of the case of a man investigating Christianity from a purely in- 
tellectual interest. In the moral and spiritual sphere there must be 
moral and spiritual motives. Nevertheless, it seems to me, that 
when the conditions peculiar to the subject-matter are observed, 
the procedure of the man who puts the Christian claim to the test 
is truly scientific. 


Note 18, Pace 212. 
The Principles of Science, vol. i., p. 271. 


APPENDIX. 435 


Note 19, Pace 212. 


Frank, vol. i., p. 148: ‘‘ We distinguish thus the certainty as 
a beginning, resting in itself and not leading back to a higher 
principle of knowledge, from that certainty which starting from 
this beginning possesses itself of the complex of the Christian 
truth ; and consequently also the certainty which has respect to the 
fact of the Christian moral transformation of life, from the cer- 
tainty which in general results therefrom for the Christian. In 
the first instance we have absolute indentity of subject and object, 
I=], self-assertion and self-affirmation of the I, namely, of that 
which has arisen in regeneration, and the certainty resting in itself 
has in this equalization of both its support and its limit.” (Evans’s 
trans., p. 137.) 

Note 20, Pace 212. 
Lecture IV., p. 181 seq. 


Nore 21, Pager 212, 
See Lecture IV., Note 2. 


Note 22, Page 214. 


Cf. Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie, 2d ed., vol. ii., p. 276 seq. 
—a very interesting and instructive passage 


Note 23, Pace 215. 
Self-Revelation of God, p. 39. 


Note 24, Page 215. 

Ibid., p. 82. 

Note 25, Pace 217. 

Cf. Julius Miller, Dogmatische Abhandlungen, p. 127 seq.: 
“Das Verhaltniss zwischen der Wirksamkeit des heiligen Geistes 
und dem Gnadenmittel des godttlichen Wortes.” In this treatise 
Miller shows that the Reformed doctrine that the influence of the 
Holy Spirit in conversion attends or accompanies and gives effect 
to the Word, is truer to Scripture and fact than the Lutheran doc- 
trine (which he proves not to be the original Lutheran doctrine but 
to be peculiar to the theologians of the seventeenth century), that 
the Spirit is immanent in the Word. He makes it plain that the 
main point, namely, that the work of the Spirit is in all ordinary 
cases mediated by the Word, is held in common by the two com- 
munions, and that this from the first has differenced them from 


436 APPENDIX. 


the spiritualists or enthusiasts on the one side, and the rationalists 
and Romanists on the other. 


Note 26, PAGE 218. 


It is needless, so far as our argument is concerned, to insist that 
God has access to the soul directly, without passing along the ave- 
nues of sense. This may be so, orit may not. The important 
point for us is not how God enters the soul, but that he enters it. 
It is not a question as to whether the spiritual world opens to us 
in this way or that, but whether it opens to us at all. As I have 
said in the lecture, we have no communion with our fellow-men 
apart from sense, but in this case sense does not separate but 
unites. Why should it not be so in the case of God? I am anx- 
ious not to complicate, and perhaps imperil, my argument by 
suspending it upon any philosophical theory of cognition. 


Note 27, Page 218. 


Cf. Rothe, Zur Dogmatik, 1863, p. 64 seq. Der Beweis des Glau- 
bens vol. ii., p. 128. Frank, vol. ii., p. 2. 


Note 28, PAGE 218. 


Berkeley, Minute Philosopher, Works, London, 1848, vol.i., p.386 
seq.: ‘‘Huph. By the person Alciphron is meant an individual 
thinking thing, and not the hair, skin, or visible surface, or any 
part of the outward form, color, or shape of Alciphron. Ale. This 
I grant. Huph. And in granting this, you grant that in a strict sense 
I do not see Alciphron, ¢.e., that individual thinking thing, but 
only such visible signs and tokens as suggest and infer the being 
of that invisible thinking principle or soul. Even so, in the self- 
same manner, it seems to me, that though I cannot with eyes of 
flesh behold the invisible God, yet I do in the strictest sense be- 
hold and perceive by all my senses such signs and tokens, such 
effects and operations, as suggest, indicate, and demonstrate an 
invisible God, as certainly and with the same evidence, at least, as 
any other signs, perceived by sense, do suggest to me the existence 
of your soul, spirit, or thinking principle ; which I am convinced 
of only by a few signs or effects, and the motions of one small or- 
ganized body : whereas I do at all times, and in all places, perceive 
sensible signs which evince the being of God.” Of course Berke- 
ley is referring here only to the natural, and not to the Christian, 


APPENDIX. 437 


knowledge of God, and he does not take into account the spiritual 
signs by which God’s presence is announced. ; 


Note 29, Pace 221. 
On the Holy Spirit, Works, 1852, vol. iii., p. 260. 


Note 30, Page 221. 


The theologians who have presented the experimental evidence, 
from the days of Calvin downward, have commonly represented 
it as authenticating the Christian system of doctrine, rather than 
as proving the immediate presence in the soul of the Christian 
realities. According to this view, the Spirit so illuminates the 
soul of the Christian that he perceives the truth of the Christian 
revelation (or what is the same, of the Bible) and gives his assent 
to it—which perception and assent are often represented as consti- 
tuting divine and saving faith. Baxter and Watts both rise above 
this view, and in a number of passages show that they regard the 
experimental evidence as involving a proof and knowledge of 
God’s redemptive presence, as Father, Christ, and Spirit, in the 
new life. Edwards, in his Treatise on the Religious A ffections, 
remains for the most part involved in the old view. The modern 
German theologians, especially Frank, represent Christian expe- 
rience as involving a knowledge of the facts primarily, and only 
secondarily of the doctrines. 

I have not hesitated, as the foregoing lectures show, to range 
myself with those who regard the illumination of the Christian as 
furnishing proof and knowledge of the Christian realities. This 
view seems to me to correspond with the teachings of Scripture 
and to be confirmed by experience. It is, indeed, difficult to see 
how, except in some way inconsistent with the ordinary opera- 
tions of the human faculties, the mind could be assured of truths 
without having a knowledge of the facts for which those truths 
stand. When the facts are known first, then the truths are readily 
accepted. The Christian does not believe in the doctrine of the 
Trinity, with the infallible assent of the fides divina, because that 
doctrine has been in some mysterious way made evident to him by 
the Holy Spirit, but because the teachings of the Bible respecting’ 
the Father, Son, and Spirit have been infallibly confirmed by the 
actual presence and manifestation of the sacred Three in the ex- 
perience of the Christian life. . 


438 APPHNDIX. 


Note 31, PAGE 222. 


The statement in the lecture is not to be construed as casting 
any doubt upon the true and complete personality of the Holy 
Spirit, a fact which is unquestionably taught in the Scripture and 
confirmed by the believer’s experience. All that is meant is that 
his personality is not the characteristic that comes first and most 
distinctly to light. 


Note 32, Paar 228. 
Cf. Dorner, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 176. 


NOTES TO LECTURE VII. 


Note 1, PAGE 282. 


Peip, Die Grinzen des Beweises, in Der Beweis des Glaubens, 
vol. ii., p. 111. Strictly speaking, the second class would include 
other kinds of unbelieving philosophy besides materialism. 


Note 2, Page 233. 


First Principles, Amer. ed., p. 46. 

Christianity does not deny the element of truth in agnosticism. 
It does not lay claim to an absolute knowledge. It*admits that 
we cannot know the Almighty to perfection, and gladly confesses 
with the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, whose positive faith 
it shares; ‘‘ Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade 
far into the doings of the Most High ; whom although to know be 
life, and joy to make mention of his name ; yet our soundest knowl- 
edge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can 
know him; and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, 
when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable, 
his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above and we 
upon earth ; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few” 
(Hooker, Eccles. Pol., I., 2, sect. 3). But this true Christian ag- 
nosticism is not inconsistent with much definite and well verified 
knowledge. 

Note 8, PAG 238. 


Spencer's object in his philosophy is to ‘‘ interpret the detailed 
phenomena of Life, and Mind, and Society, in terms of Matter, 


——. 


APPENDIX. 439 


Motion, and Force” (First Principles, Amer. ed., p. 556. Cf. 
Biology, Amer. ed., vol. i., p. 464, and pp. 478, 474), 


Nore 4, Pagr 234, 
Albert Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus. 


Note 5, Pace 234, 
Goethe’s Faust, Zweiter Theil. 


Note 6, Pace 235. 


It is not needful that agnosticism should bear the materialistic 
character it has in the philosophy of Spencer. When it has been 
granted that causes or nowmena are unknowable, the question is 
still open, which of the various phenomena are to be taken as fun- 
damental. Why should the lowest phenomena, namely, matter, 
motion, and force, be made to furnish the explanation of the rest ? 
Kant’s agnosticism, by its admission of the full right of the ideal 
element, stands upon a much higher level than that of Spencer. 
That of Sir William Hamilton and Mansel, in spite of its lack of 
self-consistency (or perhaps we might say, because of it) stands 
higher than either, inasmuch as it finds a place for revelation. 


Note %, PAGE 286. 


Frank, Syst. der christ]. Gewissheit, 2d edition, vol. i., p. 59. 
Evans’s trans., p. 58. 


Nore 8, Pace 2388. 


Newman, Grammar of Assent, New York, 1870, p. 231. New- 
man also quotes (p. 403 seq.) from Aristotle’s Ethics the following 
passage: ‘‘ Young men come to be mathematicians and the like, 
but they cannot possess practical judgment ; for this talent is em- 
ployed upon individual facts, and these are learned only by ex- 
perience ; and a youth has not experience, for experience is only 
gained by a course of years, And so, again, it would appear that 
a boy may be a mathematician, but not a philosopher, or learned 
in physics, and for this reason, because one study deals with ab- 
stractions, while the other studies gain their principles from ex- 
perience, and in the latter subjects youths do not give assent, but 
make assertions, but in the former they know what it is that they 
are handling.” Eth. Nicom., vi. 8. Bohn’s trans., p. 164. 


440 APPENDIX. 


Note 9, PAGE 239. 


Apology, ch. xvii.: ‘‘O testimonium anime naturaliter Christi- 


ane !” 
Note 10, Page 240. 


Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 828. Aristotle, Eth. Nicom., 
vi., 11, fin. Bohn’s trans., p. 170. 


Note 11, Page 241. 


Works, 1830, vol. xx., p. 172. Cf. Ueberweg’s Logic, Lindsay’s 
trans., p. 547 seq. Watts says (Works, 1801, vol. i., p. 23): “It is 
true, indeed, this is a testimony that cannot be communicated to 
others, in the same manner and measure that it is felt by the per- 
sons that believe. In this respect it is like the hidden manna, 
which none knows but they that taste of it ; yet those that feed 
upon it daily will discover it in some outward appearances.” 

Owen says (Works, 1852, vol. iv., p. 95): ‘‘ But yet, although 
this testimony be privately received (for in itself it is not so, but 
common unto all believers), it is ministerially pleadable in the 
church as a principal motive unto believing. A declaration of the 
divine power which some have found by experience in the Word 
isan ordinance of God to convince others and to bring them unto 
faith ; yea, of all the external arguments that are or may be 
pleaded to justify the divine authority of the Scripture, there is 
none more prevalent nor cogent than this of its mighty efficacy in 
all ages on the souls of men, to change, convert, and renew them 
into the image and likeness of God, which hath been visible and 
manifest.” 


Note 12, Page 241. 


Der Beweis des Glaubens, vol. ii., p. 112: Peip, Die Granzen des 
Beweises—‘‘ allgemeingiiltig, wenn auch nicht allgemein gelt- 
end.” Cf. Klaiber on the Test. Spir. Sanct. in the Jahrb. fiir 
deutsche Theologie, vol. ii., p. 85: ‘‘ Als ein Produkt der pers6én- 
lichen Lebenserfahrung ist das in Rede stehende Argument aller- 
dings nur ein subjectiver Beweis, aber ein fiir das Subject schlecht- 
hin giltiger, und fiir das Subject von allgemeiner Giltigkeit. Denn 
es beruht auf einer Erfahrung, welche ein Jeder machen kann und 
soll, welche zu machen ein Jeder durch seine ethische Natur auf. 
gefordert wird.” 


APPENDIX. 44] 


Note 13, Pace 242. 


Novum Organum, Lib. I., Aph. Ixviii. : ‘Ut non alius fere sit 
aditus ad regnum hominis, quod fundatur in scientiis, quam ad 
regnum ceelorum ; in quod, nist sub persona infantis, intrare non 
datur.” Works, 1819, vol. viii., p. 24. Cf. Valerius Terminus 
of the Interpretation of Nature, ch. i. : ‘‘ Nay, it is a point fit and 
necessary in the front and beginning of this work, without hesita- 
tion or reservation to be professed, that it is no less true in this 
human kingdom of knowledge than in God’s kingdom of heaven, 
that no man shall enter into it except he become first as a little child.” 
Ibid., vol. ii., p. 135. 


Norte 14, Paar 242. 
Ueberweg, Logic, Lindsay’s trans., p. 514. 


Note 15, Paar 248. 

“The knowing spirit can attain to certainty in a twofold way— 
in the way of knowledge and in the way of faith. If one has at- 
tained certainty by one’s own intellectual effort, he does not be- 
lieve, he knows it. But if one has attained certainty by the 
credible testimony of others who know, then he does not know 
it, he deldeves it” (Hettinger, Apologie des Christenthums, vol. i., 
pt. 2, p. 4). This is a well-known and highly valued Roman 
Catholic work on apologetics. 


Norte 16, Pace 244. 


Kant’s Werke, ed. Hartenstein, 1867, vol. v., p. 141 (Wat- 
son’s Selections from Kant, p. 300). 


Note 17, Pace 246. 


Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV., ch. xv., 
sect. 5. 
Note 18, Pace 247. 


Commentary on First Peter, ch. i, vv. 18, 19. 


Nore 19, PAGE 248. 

On the relative necessity of the opposition to Christianity on 
the part of the unregenerate man, see Frank, vol.i., p. 157 seq. 
He says (p. 159 seq.): ‘‘The fundamental contradiction to the 
Christian truth rests immediately upon the incongruity between 


449 APPENDIX. 


the natural experience and knowledge of the subject and the 
spiritual realities with which the assuring of the Christian is con- 
cerned. Clothed in the dress of human thought and human lan- 
guage, those spiritual realities, in so far as this is the case, admit 
also of an experience and knowledge of a natural kind, which, 
however, on account of the fundamental incongruity between 
object and subject which remains, necessarily offends against 
the natural-moral certainty already present, and so calls forth the 
contradiction of the latter’’ (Evans’s trans., p. 152). 


~ Nore 20, Pacer 249. 


Cowper, by Goldwin Smith, p. 5. English Men of Letters 
Series. 
Note 21, Pace 253. 


Religionsphilosophie, 2d ed., vol. ii., p. 629. 


Note 22, Pace 254. 
De Carne Christi, c. v.: ‘‘ And the Son of God died ; it is by 
all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And he was buried 
and rose again ; the fact is certain, because it is impossible.” 


Note 28, Paar 254. 


Baxter ( vol. xx., p. 170) gives the following objection and an- 
swer : | 

“* Oly. What kind of a doctrine is that, that a reasonable man 
cannot believe? It seems, then, it wanteth evidence of its truth. 

‘* Ans. It wanteth not evidence suitable to its nature, and to an 
enlightened understanding, or to sound reason; but its evidence 
is not of itself sufficient to the carnal mind: not because it want- 
eth due evidence, but because reason is wanting to that mind ; for 
reasonable, carnal men are not reasonable, as to the exercise, in 
these spiritual things. . . . How foolish was Aristotle him- 
self, and all his brethren, about matters of his own salvation, for 
all the strength of his reason in natural things.” 


Note 24, Pace 255. 


Julius Miller quotes with approval the words of Steffens 
(Christliche Religionsphilosophie, pt. 1, p. 12.) : ‘‘The union of 
Faith with all the formative forces of the age, so far as these 
are true and contain living germs of the future, constitutes Phi- 


APPENDIX. 443 


losophy, properly so called. The affections can only be at rest 
when religion is the standard and measure of all truth, and re- 
ligion receives its final solution when unchanged as to its inner 
truth—for it is indeed unchangeable and independent of all the 
vicissitudes of time—it takes up into itself all wisdom and all 
life.” Christliche Lehre von der Siinde, 5th ed., vol. i., p. 27 seq. 
(Urwick’s transl., vol. i., p. 25). 


Note 25, Pace 255. 
Cowper, The Task. 


Note 26, Paar 255. 


Cf. Henry B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, p. 297 seq.: Hamil- 
ton’s Theory of Knowledge. 


Note 27, Pace 256. 


“Tt is not to be forgotten that to-day the most serious dangers 
threaten religious faith from the side of natural science—dangers 
which assuredly will not be averted by being ignored, while it is 
thought possible to rescue faith in the realm of ideal feeling and to 
leave the realm of reality to unbelief” (O. Pfleiderer, Jahrb. fiir 
prot. Theologie, vol. xv., p. 45). 


Note 28, Paar 256. 


Watts, vol.i., p. 24: ‘‘Though this inward evidence of the 
truth of Christianity be of a spiritual nature, and spring from 
pious experience, yet it is a very rational evidence also, and 
may be made out and justified to the strictest reason. It is 
no vain, fanciful, and enthusiastic business ; for while every be- 
liever feels the argument working strong in his heart and soul, he 
finds also the convincing force of it upon his understanding : 
while he feels his inward powers sweetly inclined to virtue and 
holiness, which by nature had strong inclination to sensuality 
and sin, and knows that this was wrought in him purely by the 
Gospel of Christ ; he cannot but infer that must be a divine prin- 
ciple which has such divine effects.” 


Note 29, Pacer 259. 
Newman Smyth, The Religious Feeling, p. 18. 


Note 30, PaaE 259. 
Ibid., p. 34. 


444 APPENDIX. 


Note 31, Pace 259. 
Ibid., p. 107. 
Note 32, Pace 261. 
Cf. Harris, Self-Revelation of God, pp. 89-95 ; p. 114 seq. 


Note 33, PAGE 2638. 


Works, New York, 1830, vol. v., p. 102 seq. Cf. Vaughan, 
Hours with the Mystics, vol. i., p. 184: ‘‘ President Edwards, in 
his Treatise on the Affections, appears to me to approach the er- 
ror of those mystics, in endeavoring to make it appear that regen- 
eration imparts a new power rather than a new disposition to the 
mind. Such a doctrine cuts off the common ground between the 
individual Christian and other men.” 


Note 34, Pace 267. 
Vol. xx., p. 166. 


Nore 35, Pace 268. 
Ibid. 


NOTES TO LECTURE VIII. 


Note 1, Pace 270. 


Cf. Frank, Syst. der christl. Gewissheit, 2d ed., vol. i., p. 2738 
seq. Evans’s trans., p. 259 seq. Frank states the rationalistic ob- 
jections with great completeness and insight. 


Note 2, Page 271. 
See Lecture VII., Note 19. 


Note 8, PAGE 272. 
Ueberweg’s Logic, Lindsay’s trans., p. 511. 


Note 4, Pace 273. 
Die Religion innerhalb, etc., was first published in 1794. 


Nore 5, Pace 273. 


Cf. Miller, Die christliche Lehre von der Siinde, 5th ed., vol.i., 
p. 466 seq.; vol. ii., p. 109. 


APPENDIX. 445 


Note 6, Pace 274, 


Spinoza says (Ep. XXI., vol. iii., p. 195, Leipsic, 1846, quoted by 
Farrar, Crit. Hist. of Free Thought, p. 110), ‘“‘Dico ad salutem 
non esse omnino necesse, Christum secundum carnem noscere ; sed 
de eterno illo filio Dei, hoc est, Dei eterna sapientia que sese 
in omnibus rebus, et maxime in mente humana, et omnium 
maxime in Christo Jesu manifestavit, longe aliter sentiendum.” 


Note %, Page 274, 


Cf. Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie, 2d ed., vol. ii., p. 472 
seq.: “‘ According to Kant the only essential object of saving 
faith is the ideal Christ, z.e., the ideal of humanity well-pleasing 
to God ; but while the origin and the verification of this idea are 
to be found in the human reason itself, it finds its illustration in a 
historical personality like Jesus, whose moral power so success- 
fully preserved itself under all opposition that we can consider 
him as an example of the idea of moral perfection, whether he 
wholly corresponds in reality to the same or not—a point with 
respect to which nothing certain can ever be maintained.” 


Note 8, Pace 274. 


For a good account of Kant’s doctrine, see Pfleiderer, vol. i., p. 
144 seq. 
Note 9, Page 274, 


For Ritschl’s theology, see his Christliche Lehre von der Recht- 
fertigung und Versdhnung, 1st ed., 1870-74, 2d ed., 1882-88. A 
third edition is now in process of publication. Ritschl’s views 
are presented systematically in the third volume. In his Theologie 
und Metaphysik, 1st ed., 1881, 2d ed., 1887, he replies to the 
strictures of his opponents, especially Luthardt, Frank, and Her- 
mann Weiss. An interesting popular exposition of Ritschl’s the- 
ology is the Darstellung und Beurtheilung der Theologie Albrecht 
Ritschl’s by Julius Thikétter, 2d ed., 1887. On the other side, 
sce the acute and elaborate refutation of Ritschl by Stahlin,— 
Kant, Lotze, Albrecht Ritschl, 1888. Translated into English. 


Nore 10, PacE 275. 


Theologie und Metaphysik, 2d ed., p. 32 seq. 


446 APPENDIX. 


Note 11, Paes 275. 
Ibid., pp. 20, 37. 


Note 12, Paar 277. 
Ibid., p. 31. 


Note 18, Pace 277%. 
Ibid., p. 51. Cf. p. 48 seq. 


Note 14, Pace 277. 


W. Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott, 1886. See 
p. 26 seq.: ‘God gives us knowledge of himself through a fact, 
on account of which we can believe onhim. . . . The exist- 
ence [?.¢., the historical existence] of Jesus in our world is the fact 
through which God so comes into contact with us that he en- 
ters into communion with us.” Cf. Herrmann’s pamphlet, Die 
Gewissheit des Glaubens und die Freiheit der Theologie, 1887. 
He says (p. 80): ‘‘But if the reality of God becomes certain to 
us only under the impression of the person of Jesus, God enters 
thereby into communion with us. What Jesus works in us be- 
comes to us a work of God. By bringing God into our sphere 
of knowledge through his historical appearance, he himself  be- 
comes the manifestation by which God comes near to us, The 
contents of the Word by which God communes with us is Jesus 
Christ. Thus it is all-important that we understand this Word 
and be inwardly strengthened by it. Only by such understanding 
do we have communion with God.” 


Note 15, Paar 277. 


Cf. The Expositor, January, 1889, p. 42 seq.: The Deep Gulf be- 
tween the Old Theology and the New, by Franz Delitzsch, D.D., 
—A Last Confession of Faith: “ With regard to the real personal 
intercourse with the living God and the revealed Son of God and 
man,” says Delitzsch (p. 47), “‘the new dogmatic school views this 
as a mystic illusion opposed to experience.” 


Nove 16, Pace 277, 

See the Theologische Literaturzeitung, August 10, 1889, article 
by Lobstein on Kaftan’s Wahrheit der christlichen Religion. The 
‘“Grundgedanke” of this able Ritschlian book is said to be: 
‘Nicht das theoretische Erkennen, sondern nur ein praktischer 


APPENDIX. 447 


Glaube ist im Stande, die letzten Fragen nach Ursache und Zweck 
der Welt zu beantworten.” 


Note 17, Pacer 278. 
See Lecture VII., p. 244 seq. 


Note 18, Pace 279. 


For some good remarks on the ‘‘doppelte Wahrheit” of the 
Neo-Kantians and Ritschlians, see Pfleiderer, vol. i., p. 516 seq. 
He speaks of ‘‘die Sophistik des zweifachen, halbskeptischen und 
halbglaubigen Neu-Kantianismus.” 


Note 19, Pace 281. 


On the subject of the Vorstellung and its relation to perception on 
the one side, and thought on the other, see Biedermann’s Christ- 
liche Dogmatik, 2d ed., vol. i., pp. 104-173. 


Nore 20, Pace 282. 


Cf. Strauss, Leben Jesu, vol. ii., p. 709 seq. (4th ed., 1840). 
Also Hettinger, Apologie des Christenthums, vol. ii., pt. 2, p. 476 
seq. 

Note 21, Pace 282. 


Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Religion. Works, 1840, 
vols. xi. and xii. 
Note 22, Pace 282. 


Christliche Dogmatik, 2d ed., 1884. 


Note 238, PAGE 282. 
Religionsphilosophie, 2d ed., 1883-84. 


Note 24, Pace 282. 
Cf. Biedermann, vol. ii., p. 600 seq. 


Note 25, Pace 285. 


On the general subject of the pantheistic objections to the 
Christian experience, consult Frank, vol. i., pp. 393-510 (Evans’s 
trans., pp. 371-482). 


Note 26, Pace 287. 


Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, 2d ed., London, 1860, vol. i., 
pp. 17, 19. Edward Dowden, in an article in the Fortnightly Re- 


448 APPENDIX. 


view, January, 1890, entitled ‘‘An Eighteenth Century Mystic,” 
speaks of Vaughan’s book as an “‘ interesting, but slender study 
of a great subject.” On this point I am not capable of venturing 
an opinion. I can only say that I have read the book with great 
delight and profit. 


Note 27, PAGE 287. 
Ibid., vol. i., p. 26. 


Nore 28, Pacer 288. 
Systematic Theology, vol. i., p. 64. Cf. Pfleiderer’s definition, 
vol. ii., p. 683. 
Note 29, PAGE 289, 


Coleridge says (Aids to Reflection, Works, New York, 1853, 
vol. i., p. 156), ‘‘ One feature common to the whole group ” of fa- 
natics is ‘‘the pretence, namely, of possessing, or a belief and ex- 
pectation grounded on other men’s assurances of their possessing, 
an immediate consciousness, a sensible experience, of the Spirit 
in and during its operation on the soul. It is not enough that you 
grant them a consciousness of the gifts and graces infused, or an 
assurance of the spiritual origin of the same, grounded on their 
correspondence to the Scripture promises, and their conformity 
with the idea of the divine Giver. No! they all alike, it will be 
found, lay claim (or at least look forward) to an inward percep- 
tion of the Spirit itself and of its operating.” 


Note 30, Pace 290, 
Systematic Theology, vol. i., pp. 68, 67 seq. 


Note 31, Pace 292. 


Apology of True Christian Divinity, New York, 1827, p. 26. 
The Apology was first published in 1676 in Latin, and in 1678 in 
English. 

Note 82, Pace 293. 

Ibid., p. 67. 

Nore 33, Pace 293. 

Hettinger, a Roman Catholic, says, speaking of the Protestant 
doctrine of the inward testimony of the Spirit (Fundamental-The- 
ologie, 1879, vol. i., p. 206): ‘‘If it is an inward revelation of the 
Holy Ghost through which the outward revelation is known to be 
divine, then it is not the revelation but rather this inward witness 


APPENDIX. 449 


of the Holy Spirit that is the final criterion and highest principle 
of all supernatural truth and certainty. But thereby fanaticism 
is conceded to be in the right, as the Quakers were able to show,” 
and he quotes from Barclay. But this inward “ revelation ” has 
been mediated by the objective Word and corresponds to it. It 
is in a true sense subordinate to the Word. 


Note 34, Pacer 293, 


See Owen, Works, 1852, vol. iv., p. 59 seq. : ‘Some are ready 
to apprehend that this retreat into a Spirit of revelation is but a 
pretence to discard all rational arguments and to introduce enthu- 
siasm into their room. Now, although the charge be grievous, 
yet because it is groundless, we must not forego what the Script- 
ure plainly affirms and instructs us in, thereby to avoid it.” The 
whole passage is most instructive. 


Nore 35, Pacr 294. 
Systematic Theology, vol. i., p. 15 seq. 


Note 36, Page 294, 
Faith and Philosophy, p. 36 seq. 


Note 37, Paar 295. 


Dorner, Christliche Glaubenslehre, vol. i., p. 160: ‘‘ According 
to Schleiermacher, Christianity consists in the feeling or conscious- 
ness of redemption.” 


Note 388, Paar 295. 


Reden iiber die Religion an die Gebildeten unter ihren Ver- 
achtern, first published in 1799. Der christliche Glaube nach 
den Grundsitzen der evangelischen Kirche, 1821-22. An exce]- 
lent account of Schleiermacher’s system is given by Pfleiderer, 
vol. i., pp. 290-328. 


Nore 39, Pacer 297. 
Systematic Theology, vol. i., p. 15 seq. 


Nore 40, Pager 297. 
Introduction to Christian Theology, p. 61. 


Nore 41, Paar 299, 


Lecture IV., p. 116 seq, Lecture VII., p. 263 seq, 
29 


450 APPENDIX. 


Note 42, PacE 299. 
Cf. Lecture IV., Note 21. 


Note 48, Paes 300. 
See ante, p. 289. 


Notes 44, Paar 300. 
Cf. Lecture VI., Note 27. 


Notnt 45, Pace 302. 


See Lecture V., p. 192 seq. Watts says of the experimental 
evidence (vol. i., p. 82): ‘‘It may be darkened indeed, it may be 
hidden for a season; sometimes the violent temptations of the 
evil one may, as it were, stop the mouth of this divine witness ; 
and sometimes defiling lusts, rising upon the face of the soul, may 
darken these evidences, but can never entirely blot them out.” 


Norte 46, Pacer 302. 

Jahrbicher fiir deutsche Theologie, 1857, vol. ii., pp. 1-53: Die 
Lehre der altprotestantischen Dogmatiker von dem Testimonium 
Spiritus Sancti, und ihre dogmatische Bedeutung, by Klaiber. Cf. 
Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. ii., p. 584 seq. Also 
Short on the Witness of the Spirit, Bampton Lectures for 1842. 


Note 47, PacE 308. 
Lecture I., Note 14. 


Note 48, Pace 303. 


The following definition of the doctrine is taken from the 
Lutheran theologian Hollaz (Exam. Theolog. Acromat. De 
Script., p. 88, quoted by Luthardt, Kompendium der Dogmatik, 
7th ed., p. 314): ‘‘ Testimonium Spiritus sancti internum, 7.e., ac- 
tus supernaturalis Spiritus sancti, per verbum Dei attente lectum 
vel auditu perceptum, virtute sua divina Scripture sacree commu- 
nicata, cor hominis pulsantis, aperientis, illuminantis, et obsequium 
fidei flectentis, ut homo illuminatus ex internis motibus spirituali- 
bus vere sentiat, verbum sibi propositum a Deo ipso esse profec- 
tum, atque adeo immotum ipsi assensum preebeat.” 

Cf. Strauss, Glaubenslehre, vol. i., p. 184 seq. Strauss calls 
this doctrine ‘‘ the Achilles-heel of the Protestant system,” because, 
as he declares, it logically leads either to fanaticism or ration- 


APPENDIX. 451 


alism. A very clear account of the Roman Catholic position is 
given by Hettinger, Apologie des Christenthums, 6th ed., vol. il., 
pt. 2, p. 426 seq. 
Nore 49, Pacr 304, 
Lecture VI., Note 30. 


Note 50, Paar 304. 


See Drey, Apologetik, 2d ed., vol. i., p. 349: “Undeniable as 
is the convincing power of the inward personal experience, yet 
this test of truth cannot be counted as one of the proper evidences 
of revelation, since the means of proof must be something objec- 
tive or at least universally communicable, which a mere feeling, 
an inward experience of the soul is not.” Drey is one of the most 
eminent Roman Catholic apologetes. Kaftan, a follower of 
Ritschl, and Dorner’s successor in the university of Berlin, uses 
similar language, though denying the experience himself (Wabr- 
heit der christlichen Religion, 1889, p. 239) : “‘ The proof of the 
truth of the Christian faith by experience regarded as a scientific 
principle does not stand the test. . . . The objects” of the 
experience ‘‘do not compel assent.” 


Norte 51, Pacr 304. 
Lecture VII., p. 236 seq. 


Nore 52, Paar 808, 


Fleming’s Vocabulary of Philosophy, 4th ed., revised by Cal- 
derwood, New York, 1887, p. 140. 


NOTES TO LECTURE IX. 


Nore 1, Page 310. 


See Butler’s Analogy, pt. 2, ch. vii. (Malcom’s ed., Philadel- 
phia, 1866, p. 263 seq.): ‘‘ Thus the evidence of Christianity will 
be a long series of things, reaching, as it seems, from the begin- 
ning of the world to the present time, of great variety and com- 
pass, taking in both the direct, and also the collateral, proofs, and 
making up, all of them together, one argument. The conviction 
arising from this kind of proof may be compared to what they 


452 APPENDIX. 


call the effect, in architecture or other works of art; a result from 
a great number of things, so and so disposed, and taken into one 
view.” 

Note 2, PAGE 311. 


Works, 1830, vol. xx., p. 178. 


Note 8, Page 811. 


Cf. Watts, Works, 1801, vol. i., p. 30: ‘‘ Though there are 
many and sufficient arguments drawn from criticism, history, and 
human learning, to prove the sacred authority of the Bible, and 
such as may give abundant evidence to an honest inquirer, and 
full satisfaction that it is the Word of God; yet this is the chief 
evidence that the greatest part of Christians can ever attain of the 
divine original of the holy Scripture itself, as well as the truth of 
the doctrine contained in it, viz.: That they have found such a 
holy and heavenly change passed upon them by reading or hear- 
ing the propositions, the histories, the promises, the precepts, and 
the threatenings of this book.” 


Note 4, Pacer 3138. 

Cf. Owen, The Reason of Faith, chap. iv.—‘‘ Moral Cer- 
tainty, the Result of External Arguments, Insufficient.” Works, 
1852, vol. iv., p. 50: ‘‘ These arguments are all human and fal- 
lible. Exalt them into the greatest esteem possible, yet because 
they are not demonstrations, nor do necessarily beget a certain 
knowledge in us (which indeed if they did, there were no room 
left for faith or our obedience therein), they produce an opinion 
only, though in the highest kind of probability, and firm against 
objections ; for we will allow the utmost assurance that can be 
claimed upon them. But this is exclusive of all divine faith, as 
to any article, thing, matter, or object to be believed.” 


Note 5, Pace 318. 
Lecture I., p. 27 seq. 
Note 6, Page 318. 
Lecture IV., p. 116 seq. Lecture VII., p. 2638 seq. 


Note 7, Pace 317. 


Cf. Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, transl. by 
Weitbrecht and edited by Kingsbury, Amer, ed., 1874, p. 517 seq. 


APPENDIX, 453 


Nore 8, Pace 317. 
Ladd, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i., p. 581. 


Note 9, Pacer 318. 
Lecture VIII., p. 302 seq. 


Nore 10, Pager 319, 


_, Watts, vol. i., p. 27: “It is sucha witness to the truth of the 
Christian religion, as does not depend upon the exact truth of let- 
ters and syllables, nor on the critical knowledge of the copies of 
the Bible, nor on this old manuscript, or on the other new trans- 
lation. . . . The humble and sincere Christian has learned 
so much of the same Gospel, in which all copies agree, as has re- 
newed his sinful nature, and wrought a divine life in him, and 
therefore he is sure the substance of this Gospel must be from 
God. Nay, if this property of the inward witness be duly con- 
sidered a little further in the nature and attendants of it, we shall 
find that every true Christian has a sufficient argument and evi- 
dence to support. his faith, without being able to prove the au- 
thority of any of the canonical writings. He may hold fast his 
religion, and be assured that it is divine, though he cannot bring 
any learned proof that the book that contains it is divine too ; nay, 
though the book itself should ever happen to be lost or destroyed.” 


Note 11, Pacer 319. 


Dogmatik, p. 92, quoted by Luthardt, Komp. der Dogmatik, 
wth ed., p. 319; ‘‘I must candidly confess, that firmly convinced 
though I am of the truth of revelation, I have never in my life 
experienced such a testimony of the Holy Spirit, and find no word 
about it in the Bible, for John vii. 17,1 John v. 6, prove nothing.” 
Cf. Klaiber, in the Jahrb. fiir deutsche Theologie, vol. ii., p. 7 
seq. 

Norte 12, Page 319. 


I heartily sympathize with all legitimate investigations by Chris- 
tian scholars in the line of the “ higher criticism.” Such investi- 
gations cannot but be of advantage to the Christian church, and 
we ought not to complain that the result in some instances is to 
make us greatly modify our previously accepted theories of the 
constitution of the Bible. But when Christian scholars accept in 


454 APPENDIX. 


bulk the unproved, or only partially proved theories of unbelieving 
critics, theories based upon naturalistic assumptions, we have a 
right to enter our protest. 


Note 13, PacE 821. 


With respect to the oppositions of unbelief, Watts uses language 
that has not yet lost its force (vol. i., p. 29): ‘‘If we consider 
what bold assaults are sometimes made upon the faith of the un- 
learned Christian, by the deists and unbelievers of our age, by 
disputing against the authority of the Scripture, by ridiculing 
the strange narratives and sublime doctrines of the Bible, by set- 
ting the seeming contradictions in a blasphemous light, and then 
demanding, ‘How can you prove, or how can you believe, that 
this book is the Word of God, or that the religion it teaches is 
divine?’ In such an hour of contest, how happy is the Christian 
that can say, ‘ Though I be not able to solve all the difficulties in 
the Bible, nor maintain the sacred authority of it against the cav- 
ils of wit and learning ; yet I am well assured that the doctrines of 
this book are sacred, and the authority of them divine. For when 
I heard and received them, they changed my nature, they subdued 
my sinful appetites, they made a new creature of me, and raised 
me from death to life ; they made me love God above all things, 
and gave me the lively and well-grounded hope of his love: There- 
fore I cannot doubt but that the chief principles of this book are 
heavenly and divine, though I cannot so well prove that the very 
words and syllables of it are so too ; for it is the sense of Scripture, 
and not the mere letters of it, on which I build my hope.” 


Note 14, Page 3821. 


If there is any one thing more than another that the church needs 
in our age, it is to realize the value of the Bible asa means of grace. 
There never was a time when more careful study of a merely in- 
tellectual kind was devoted to it. But even Christians seem to 
have grown sceptical as to its use in the sustenance of the Christian 
life. 

Norte 15, Pace 322. 

Lecture I., p. 7. 


Norte 16, Paar 322. 


Dorner, System der christlichen Glaubenslehre, vol. i., p. 87. 
Eng. trans., vol. i., p. 101. 


APPENDIX. 455 


Note 17, Paar 324. 


Yet one who reads these arguments cannot help sympathizing 
with Cardinal Newman, when he says (Grammar of Assent, New 
York, 1870, p. 413): ‘If Iam asked to use Paley’s argument for 
my own conversion, I say plainly, I do not want to be converted 
by a smart syllogism ; if I am asked to convert others by it, I say 
plainly, I do not care to overcome their reason without touching 
their hearts. I wish to deal not with controversialists but with 
inquirers.” 

Nore 18, Pacer 824. 

Hume’s Essays, 1777, vol. ii., p. 185: ‘ Upon the whole, then, 
it appears that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever 
amounted to a probability, much less to a proof, and that even 
supposing it amounted to a proof, it would be opposed by another 
proof, derived from the very nature of the fact which it would 
endeavor to establish.” 


Norte 19, Pace 325. 


Among others I may mention Rothe, Zur Dogmatik, p. 80 seq.; 
Dorner, vol. i., p. 583 seq. (Eng. trans., vol. ii., p. 146 seq.); 
Frank, Christliche Gewissheit, vol. ii., p. 108 seq., p. 219 seq.; 
Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i., p. 286 seq.; Fisher, 
Supernatural Origin of Christianity, p. 471 seq.; Grounds of The- 
istic and Christian Belief, chaps. vii. and x. 


Note 20, Pace 329. 


See an interesting article in the Mineteenth Century, November, 
1882, entitled Modern Miracles, by R. F. Clarke, S. J. 


Note 21, Pace 329. 


See the Presbyterian Review, July, 1883, Modern Miracles, by 
Rev. M. R. Vincent, D.D.; January, 1884, Healing through Faith, 
by Rev. R. L. Stanton, D.D.; and April, 1884, Dr. Stanton on 
Healing through Faith, by Rev. M. R. Vincent, D.D. 


Note 22, Pace 331. 


Frank, Syst. der christ]. Gewissheit, vol. ii., p. 103: ‘‘ The es- 
tablishment of the personal Christian state, experienced by the 
Christian as a miracle in so far as it is conditioned by different 
factors from those of the creative order of nature, and pointing 


456 APPENDIX. 


back to the central miracle of the appearance of the Second 
Adam, affords the certain standard for the judgment of the indi- 
vidual miraculous events in the history of redemption, as the 
same are related in the scriptural record.” 


Norte 23, Paar 382. 
Cf. Lecture IV., p. 140 seq. Watts, vol. i., p. 24: ‘The con- 
stant miracle of regeneration and converting grace.” 
Note 24, Page 833. 
Works, ed. Walch, vol. vi., p. 295. 


Note 25, Pace 384, 
Essays, 1777, vol. ii., p. 140. 


Note 26, Pace 336. 


An excellent statement of the argument from prophecy in its 
modern form may be found in Fisher’s Grounds of Theistic and 
Christian Belief, p. 314 seq. 


Note 27, Pac 338. 


The Christian has the advantage of two points of view. He is 
a combatant in the great struggle between good and evil, Christ 
and Satan, and as such is a partisan. But he can also raise himself 
to the divine point of view and behold the passing history swb spe- 
ce wternitatis. From this vantage ground he sees in both good 
and evil, elements in a divine process. God causes the wrath of 
man to praise him, and restrains the remainder of wrath. Cf. 
Lecture V., p. 188 seq. 


Norte 28, Pace 338. 
See Lecture I., p. 27 seq. 
Note 29, PacE 340. 
Das Leben Jesu, von Bernhard Weiss, Berlin, 1882, 2 vols. 


Note 30, Paae 341. 
Joseph Ernest Renan, Vie de Jésus, first published in 1863. 


a 


APPENDIX. 457 


Note 31, Pagr 344, 

Cf. The City of God, a Series of Discussions in Religion, by A. 
M. Fairbairn, D.D., Pt. Third, ‘““The Jesus of History and the 
Christ of Faith,” pp. 2138-252. Harris, Self-Revelation of God, 
p. 469 seq. Dorner, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 71 seq. 


NOTES TO LECTURE X. 


Note 1, Paar 345. 
See Lecture I., Note 21. 


Note 2, Paar 346. 


Cf. Chalmers, Select Works, New York, 1850, vol. iv., p. 456 
seq. 

Note 8, Pace 351. 

These words were written before the movement in the Presby- 
terian Church of the United States for the revision of the West- 
minster Confession of Faith attained its present importance. It 
seems best to let them stand in their original form. 


Nore 4, Pacer 353. 


Cf. Dorner’s System der christlichen Glaubenslehre, vol. 1 aah a8 
85 seq. (Eng. trans., vol. i., p. 98 seq.). Luthardt, Komp. der 
Dogmatik, 7th ed., p. 29. Luthardt gives the following defini- 
tions from Hollaz: ‘‘Articuli fidei puri sunt partes doctrine 
christiane de mysteriis divinis captu rationis humane sibi relicte 
superioribus, divinitus tamen revelatis (¢.g., the Trinity, the incar- 
nation, and the like). M¢at? dicuntur partes doctrine christiane 
de illis rebus divinis, que tum ex lumine nature quadantenus sci- 
untur, tum ex supernaturali lumine revelationis divine creduntur 
(e.g., the being and attributes of God, and the like).” The doc- 
trine here stated does not materially differ from that of the medi- 
zval theologians as given in Note 18, Lecture I. 


Note 5, Page 358. 
Lecture VII., p. 245 seq. 


458 APPENDIX. 


Note 6, Pace 354. 


Owen, Works, 1852, vol. iv., p. 54: ‘‘ There are some doctrines 
revealed in the Scripture, and those of the most importance that 
are so revealed, which concern and contain things so above our 
reason that, without some previous supernatural disposition of 
mind, they carry in them no evidence of truth unto mere reason, 
nor of suitableness unto our constitution and end. There is re- 
quired unto such an apprehension both the spiritual elevation of 
the mind by supernatural illumination, and a divine assent unto 
the authority of the revelation thereon, before reason can be so 
much as satisfied in the truth and excellency of such doctrines. 
Such are those concerning the holy Trinity, or the subsistence of 
one singular essence in three distinct persons, the incarnation 
of the Son of God, the resurrection of the dead, and sundry others, 
that are the most proper subjects of divine revelation.” 


Note 7, Pace 354. 


The term came into use in the pietistical controversies in Ger- 
many during the latter part of the seventeenth century. See 
Gieseler’s Church History, translated and edited by H. B. Smith, 
vol. v., p. 284 seq. Spener declared that ‘‘only a regenerate 
man possesses the true theology. Without the new birth it might 
be possible to attain to a philosophy of divine things, but not to a 
theology.”” Frank says (System der christlichen Gewissheit, vol. i. 
p. 164; Evans’s trans., p. 156), speaking of the theologia irregent- 
torum, ‘‘Men compute, in the study of it, with the given quanti- 
ties, and the calculation may as such be correct; just as in 
mathematics one can rightly calculate with definite formulas, 
without needing to possess an acquaintance with the realities to 
which they have reference. But the relation between the natural 
subject and the Christian truth is from the outset vitiated by 
a contradiction,” namely, that he judges the Christian realities, 
which he knows notionally but not experimentally, according to 
the standards of natural certainty. 


Norte 8, Pace 354. 


For the reason stated in the last note the facts can only be 
known as notions, not as realities. 


APPENDIX. 459 


Note 9, Paar 354. 


All facts are mysterious. It is only notions and the relations 
between notions that are wholly without mystery. The light 
whica physical science throws upon the ultimate nature of the 
facts which it brings before us is very scanty. The ‘‘ flower in 
the crannied wall” is full of mystery. Indeed, it is only in the 
sphere of religion that men insist that the admission of mystery is 
irrational. Yet if we should expect any class of facts to be mys- 
terious, it might be expected to be the Christian facts. They in- 
volve an infinite element, which we cannot of course fully com- 
prehend, and the relation of which to the finite must forever baftle 
us. Moreover, they are unique. There are no others of the same 
class by which we can explain them, and the analogies which we 
draw from other spheres must, from the nature of the case, be in- 
adequate. But all this does not put them beyond the sphere of 
reason. 


Nore 10, Pace 354. 
Fisher, Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, p. 852. 


Note 11, Paar 355. 


See Lecture I., p. 6 seq., and Note 21. Also the present lecture, 
p. 345. 


Note 12, Pace 3856. 
Cf. Lecture VII., p. 259 seq. 


Note 138, Page 35%. 


There are two reasons why the Christian Church has always re- 
sisted the influence of Unitarianism. One is that the teachings 
of the Bible require the formulation of a doctrine of the Trinity. 
The other is that Christian experience requires it. It was not the 
Nicene Council that gave us the doctrine of the Trinity, but the 
fact of the Trinity in the Bible and in the experience of the Chris- 
tian that gave us the Nicene Council. 


Note 14, Paar 358. 

Cf. Bushnell, Vicarious Sacrifice: Grounded on Principles of 
Universal Obligation, 1866. Thus the title-page gave notice that 
the treatise was constructed on a radically false method, which 
could only lead to inadequate results. Bushnell came to realize 


460 APPENDIX. 


this himself, for his second book, in which he gave a new and 
much higher theory of the atonement, bears the title, Forgiveness 
and Law : Grounded in Principles Interpreted by Human Analo- 
gves, and the same is given to the later edition of the Vicarious 
Sacrifice, published in 1877. 


Note 15, Pacer 358. 
Cf. Farrar’s Critical History of Free Thought, pp. 371, 372. 


Nore 16, Page 359. 


Biographical History of Philosophy, Amer. ed., 1866, Introd., 


Drax: 
Note 17, Pace 359. 


bids pAxest 
Nore 18, Pace 360. 


Cf. Der Beweis des Glaubens, vol. i., p. 81 seq.: Ueber den Glau- 
ben als die héchste Vernunft, von R. Grau. 


Note 19, Pace 361. 
In the Philosophie der Religion, Works, 1840, vol. xi., p. 20 seq. 


Norte 20, Pace 361. 
Kurtz, Kirchengeschichte, 11th ed., vol. i,, pt. 2,,p. 352, 


Note 21, Pace 362. 
Harris Self-Revelation of God, pp. 524-526. Henry B. Smith, 
Faith and Philosophy, pp. 1-48. 


Note 22, Paar 362, 


For a good statement of the argument, see Fisher, The Grounds 
of Theistic and Christian Belief, chap. xvi.: ‘“‘The Argument for 
Christianity from a Comparison of it with Other Religions,” 


Nore 23, Pace 363. 


See the Light of Asia and the Light of the World. A Compari- 
son of the Legend, the Doctrine, and the Ethics of Buddha, with 
the Story, the Doctrine, and the Ethics of Christ. By 8. H. Kel- 
logg, D.D., 1885. 

Note 24, Pace 364, 


See the Confessions, Bk. VIL, ch. xxi., sect. 27. I have quoted 
the passage as it is given, both in English and Latin, by Coleridge 
in the Aids to Reflection (Works, New York, 1853, vol. i., p. 189). 


APPENDIX. 461 


Note 25, Pace 365. 


Cf. the chart on p. 517 in Dorchester’s Problem of Religious 
Progress. 


Norte 26, Pacer 368. 
Cf. Lecture V., p. 188 seq.; and Lecture IX., p. 336 seq. 


Note 27, PacE 369. 
Cf. Herzog and Plitt, Real-Encyclopiadie, 2d ed., vol. i., p. 544, 


Note 28, PacEe 376. 


Cardinal Newman says (Grammar of Assent, New York, 1870, 
p. 406 seq.): The evidences of Christianity “ presuppose a belief 
and perception of the Divine Presence, a recognition of his attri- 
butes and an admiration of his Person viewed under them, a con- 
viction of the worth of the soul and of the reality and momentous- 
ness of the unseen world, an understanding that in proportion as 
we partake in our own persons of the attributes which we admire 
in him, we are dear to him, a consciousness on the contrary that 
we are far from partaking of them, a consequent insight into our 
guilt and misery, an eager hope of reconciliation to him, a desire 
to know and to love him, and a sensitive looking-out in all that 
happens, whether in the course of nature or of human life, for 
tokens, if such there be, of his bestowing on us what we so greatly 
need. These are specimens of the state of mind for which I stipu- 
late in those who would inquire into the truth of Christianity.” 

But who among the class of which we are speaking conforms to 
these requirements ? 


oes 


JENA DMO. 


Acta Sanctorum, 356. 


Agnosticism, its origin, 16; its in-— 


fluence, 16; its incongruous ele- 


ments, 16, 17; effect upon phi- | 
losophy of religion, 46; and the. 
ontological argument, 61 ; its doc- | 


trine of man, 73; relation of evo- 
lution to, 79, 80; denies freedom, 


83; denies sin, 93-96; denies im- | 
mortality, 102, 103; denies need | 
of redemption, 106; denies pos-— 
sibility of Christian experience, | 
233, 4388; its materialistic ten- | 


dency, 233, 235, 438, 439; influ- 
ence on theistic philosophy, 407. 
Agreement among Christians evi- 
dence of truth, 228-280. 
Annet, attacks miracles, 381. 
Anselm, on experience and knowl- 
edge, 386; on faith, 586, 420. 
Apologetics, changes in, 2; system 
of, opposed to deism, 6-8, 3822, 


323; old system of, inadequate, | 


17, 18; present problem of, 17, 
18; the new system of, 18-380; 
distinguished from apologies, 32 ; 
place of, in theological system, 369, 
370, 461; importance of, in work 
of the minister, 371-377 ; in teach- 
ings of Christ and the apostles, 
372, 373; in early church, 382- 
384; in medieval church, 384- 
386; of the Reformers, 386-391; of 
Puritan theologians, 391-395; of 
modern English and American 
theologians, 399-402. 

Aquinas, Thomas, apologetics of, 
384, 385; contra Gentiles, 384; 
reason light from God, 408; on 
faith, 420. 

Aristotle, on value of experience, 
240, 440; on particularism of 
knowledge, 439, 


Articuli puri et mixti, 352, 353, 457. 

Assurance of Christians, 152; its 
increasing strength, 191-194 ; sea- 
sons of doubt no disproof of, 192, 
193; alleged lack of universality, 
301, 802, 450. 

Athanasius, apologetics of, 383. 

Atonement, doctrine of, reasonable, 
B07, 858, 459, 460. 

Augustin, on man’s chief end, 101, 
416; on superiority of Christ to 
Cicero and Plato, 363, 364, 460; 

apologetics of, 383; on faith, 584, 


Bacon, Lorp, on true method of 
science, 206, 207, 433 ; on entrance 
to kingdom of science, 242, 441. 

Barclay, oni:uner light, 292, 448 ; on 
Bible, 292, 293, 448, 449; quota- 
tion from Dr. John Smith, 428. 

Baur, attack on New-Testament, 11, 


12, 382. 
Baxter, on experimental evidence, 
30, 391-894; on Christianity 


‘‘medicinal to nature,” 36, 403 ; 
on new life as evidence of Chris- 
tianity, 143, 425; on revelation of 
Christ in sanctification, 172, 173, 
174, 428; on testimony of Chris- 
tians, 240, 241, 440; on nominal 
Christians, 267, 444; on assurance 
of heathen, 268, 444; on system 
of evidences, 311, 452; father of 
English apologetics, 30, 391; his 
merits, 392; his apologetics, 392, 
393; denies claims of fanatics, 
393; on natural revelation, 403; 
on witness of the Spirit, 424; 
prayers of, 427, 430; answer to 
objection, 442. 


Bayle, teaches the ‘‘double truth,” 
f) 


WIV s 


464 


Bentham, ethical theory of, 89. 


Berkeley, maintains true view of. 


God, 45, 404; his philosophy 
adopted by Edwards, 404; his 
Alciphron, 404; on knowledge of 
God, 486, 487. 

Bible, what it is, 23, 116, 117; its 
purpose, 24; distinguished from 
Gospel and revelation, 24, 116; re- 
lation to evidence of Christian ex- 
perience, 116, 117, 219, 220, 263- 
266, 313-322, 418, 452-454 ; relation 
to inward teaching of the Spirit, 
292-294, 388-391 ; not undervalued 
in experimental evidence, 298, 299; 
its system of apologetics, 372, 373; 
in medieval church, 385; relation 
of church to, 385-888 ; Reformers’ 
doctrine of, 386-889. 

Biedermann, theology of, 282, 447; 
on immortality, 417; on Vozstel- 
lungen, 447; on the Trinity, 447. 

Blount, attacks historical evidences, 
381. 

Bridgewater Treatises, 45, 405, 406. 

Biichner, materialism of, 12. 

Buckingham, Duchess of, 
about, 249, 442. 

Buddhism, compared with Chris- 
tianity, 363, 460. 

Burk, apologetics of early church, 
385. 


story 


Bushnell, on prayer, 183, 429; Nat- 
ure and the Supernatural, 410; on 
the solidarity of men, 416; on the 
atonement, 459, 460, 

Butler, Bishop, author of Analogy, 
3, 381; his system, 6, 7; gives no 
place to experimental evidence, 
30; on probable evidence, 202, 
205, 206, 432; on organic relation 
of the evidences, 451, 452. 


CALL, the divine, 112-121; effects of, 
121-125. 

Calvin, on experimental evidence, 
29, 388-390; apologetics of, 387- 
390; on faith, 420. 

Cambridge Platonists, 379. 

Carlyle, on happiness, 415. 

Chalmers, on experimental evidence, 
30, 396; on rational evidences, 
345, 396, 457; apologetics of, 396. 

Chantepie de la Saussaye, universal- 
ity of religion, 404. 

Chillingworth, Bible the religion of 
Protestants, %4; rational theolo- 
gian, 379, 


INDEX. 


Christianity, true conception of, 19- 
27, 325, 326; rationalistic concep- 
tion of, 19, 322, 328; not inde- 
pendent of evidences of natural 
religion, 35, 36; relation to heathen 
religions, 40, 41, 362-864, 460; as 
a pepgyti aed 358-362, 460; spread 
of, 3864, 365, 461; transforming 
power of, 365-368; triumphant, 
370, 371; conception of, in early 
church, 383, 384; in medizval 
church, 385; among Reformers, 
386-388. 

Christlieb, on presuppositions in 
historical investigation, 452. 

Chubb, attacks historical evidences, 
381. 

Church, relation of, to Christian 
experience, 117-119. 

Clarke, R. F., on Roman Catholic 
miracles, 455. 

Clement of Alexandria, Christian- 
ity a philosophy, 360; apologetics 
of, 383. 

Coleridge, on experimental evidence, 
30, 396-398 ; misquotation of Au- 
gustin, 363, 364, 460; on ‘‘ Paleyo- 
Grotian”’ apologetics, 396; apol- 
ogetics of, 597, 398 ; on the Chris- 
tian pilgrim, 419; on mysticism, 
448. 

Collins, attacks evidence of proph- 
ecy, 381. 

Communion with God, 179-188: 
nothing miraculous in, 180, 181; 
finds expression in prayer, 182-187. 

Conditional immortality, 409, 410. 

Conscience, 87-91 ; effect of regen- 
eration on, 136, 137. 

Consciousness, 56, 57; of self, 57, 
58; Christian, 294-298, 

Cosmological argument, 44, 62, 63. 

Cowper, on philosophy and Chris- 
tianity, 255, 443. 

Criticism, biblical, 313-321, 452- 
454. 

Cudworth, rational theologian, 379. 


Darwin, Origin of Species, 13; loss 
of faith, 15, 382; Descent of Man, 
74, 410; on Paley’s Evidences, 
382. 

Deism, its origin, 3; its doctrines, 
3-5; its strength and weakness, 
5, 6; its conception of God, 42- 
45; denies need of redemption, 
106, 107; rejects supernatural ele- 
ment in Christian experience, 270- 


INDEX. 465 


272; in seventeenth and eighteenth | Emmons, on divine efficiency, 86, 


centuries, 379-581. 

Delitzsch, on Ritschl’s theology, 
446, 

Descartes, innate idea of God, 43, 
405; on certainty of self-existence, 
57, 409. 

Determinism, of agnosticism, 83, 
411, 412; of pantheism, 83, 411; 
of Edwards, 84-87, 412. 

D’Holbach, materialism of, 70. 

Diderot, materialism of, 70. 

Diognetus, Epistle to, apologetics of, 
382, 333. 

Doctrines of Christianity, their rea- 
sonableness, 348-3858; importance 
of, in preaching and teaching, 350- 
352; misrepresentation of, 351, 
352. 

Dorchester, on prozress of Christi- 
anity, 461. 

Dorner, on evidence of experience, 
31, 400, 401; on Christian con- 
sciousness, 207 ; mediating theolo- 
gian, 399; apologetics of, 400, 401 ; 
on choice and volition, 414; on 
development of freedom, 415; on 
conscience, 415; on means of 
grace, 418; on the congruity of 
Christianity to man’s nature, 419 ; 
differs from Frank, 423, 424; on 
relation of faith to Christ, 428; on 
traditional faith, 429; on religious 
certainty, 450, 488; on knowledge 
by contact, 431; on Schleier- 
macher’s theology, 449; on form 
and contents of Christianity, 454; 
on miracles, 455 ; on ideal and real 
in Jesus, 457. 

** Double truth,” doctrine of, 252- 
255, 442, 443. 

Dowden, on Vaughan, 447, 448. 

Dwight, on pantheism in New Eng- 
land theology, 415. 

Drey, denies that Christian experi- 
ence furnishes evidence, 451. 


EDWARDS, President, on the experi- 
mental evidence, 30, 395, 396 ; his 
conception of God, 43; determin- 
ism of, 84-87, 412; on effects 
of conversion, 136, 422, 423; on 
spiritual sense, 262, 263,444 ; apol- 
ogetics of, 395, 596 ; adopts Berke- 
ley’s philosophy, 404, 405; on 
witness of the Spirit, 425. 

Eliot, George, on immortality, 103, 
41 


30 


412; on sin, 415, 416. 


Enthusiasm, 287, 288, 380, 447, 448. 
Evidence, modern methods of, 26; 


definition of, 308, 451; organic 
character of, 310, 311. 


Evidence of Christian experience, 


subject of lectures, 1; recognition 
of importance of, 29; in the early 
church, 29, 382-384; in the med- 
izval church, 29, 384-386; at the 
Reformation, 29, 386-391; Calvin 
on, 29, 385-390 ; Westminster Con- 
fession on, 80, 390; Puritan theo- 
logians on, 380, 391-3895; modern 
English and American theologians 
on, 30, 395-399 ; modern German 
theologians on, 31, 399-402; sci- 
entific importance of, 110, 111; 
initiative from God, 112-120; in- 
volves sense of sin, 122; the pre- 
Christian element in, 122, 123, as 
related to adaptation of Gospel to 
human need, 123, 124, 419; pre- 
Christian stage of, imperfect, 124, 
125; follows method of science, 
208, 209; has an element of prob- 
able knowledge, 208-210; based 
on real knowledge, 209; involves 
change from probable to real knowl- 
edge, 211; strengthened by prog- 
ress of experience, 226-228 ; pos- 
sibility of, denied, 232-236, 438, 
439; objected to as private and 
particular, 236-241, 459,440 ; acces- 
sible to all, 239-241, 440; action 
of will in, objected to, 241-245, 
441 ; unintelligibility to uncon- 
verted, 245-252, 441, 442; said to 
involve doctrine of ‘‘ double 
truth,” 252-255, 442, 448; object- 
ed to as resting on feeling and 
faith, 255-263, 443, 444 ; said to be 
taken ready-made from the Bible, 
263-266 ; put on a level with ex- 
perience of heathen, 265-268, 444; 
supernatural element in, denied, 
270-272; objected to as involving 
metaphysics, 272-280, 444-447; 
pantheistic objection, 280-285, 447; 
condemned as mystical, 286-291, 
447, 448; identified with Quaker 
doctrine, 291-294, 448, 449; ob- 
jected to as involving erroneous 
doctrine of Christian conscious- 
ness, 294-298, 449; said to under- 
value the Scripture, 298, 299; 
condemned as subjective, 299-301 ; 


466 


objected to on ground of lack of | 


universality in Christian assurance. 
301, 302, 450; on ground of its dif- 


ference from the doctrine of the | 


witness of the Spirit, 302-304, 450, 
451; said not to be evidence, 304- 
309, 451; relation to evidence for 
authenticity, etc., of the Bible, 
313-322, 452-454; to evidence of 
miracles, 322-386, 455-456; to 
evidence of prophecy, 336-338, 


456 ; to evidence from person and | 


work of Christ, 3388-344, 456, 457 ; 
to evidence from antecedent prob- 
ability of revelation, 346-348, 
457 ; to internal evidence, 348-358, 
457-460 ; to evidence from Chris- 
tianity as philosophy,358-362, 460; 
to evidence from superiority of 
Christianity to other religions, 
362-364, 460; to evidence from 
spread of Christianity, 364-368, 
461. 

Evidence, derived from fact of re- 
generation, 138, 139, 211-213, 423, 
434, 435 ; from divine causality re- 
vealed in regeneration, 139-141, 
213-219, 425, 435-437; from pres- 
ence of Holy Spirit in regenera- 
tion, 141, 142, 221-223, 425, 487, 
438; from revelation of Christ, 
142-146, 223-225, 425, 426; from 
revelation of the Father, 146, 147, 
225, 226; from forgiveness of sins, 
147-151 ; from assurance of eter- 
nal blessedness, 151, 152, 426; 
from sanctification, 155, 156, 226- 
228; from increasing faith, 157, 
158; from increasing love, 158- 
160, 427; from holiness, 161, 162; 
from ability for service, 162, 163 ; 
from increasing wisdom and 
knowledge, 163, 164; from divine 
causality revealed in sanctification, 
166-168 ; from revelation of the 
Holy Spirit in sanctification, 169- 
171, 221-223, 487, 438; of Christ, 
171-176, 223-225, 428; of the 
Father, 176-178, 225, 226; from 
the Christian’s communion with 
God, 179-188, 429; from his 
knowledge of God’s kingdom, 188, 
189; from the common experience 
of Christians, 189-191, 228-230, 
429, 430; from increasing assur- 
ance, 191-194, 430. 

Kividences of Christianity, organic 


relation of, 26, 310, 311, 451, 452; | 


| 


INDEX. 


historical, 27, 313-344; rational, 
27, 35, 345-364; practical, 28, 29, 
364-369 ; place of experimental 
evidence among, 29, 311, 312, 374, 
375, 452. 

Evolution, and man, 73-76, 410; and 
ethics, 90, 415; and sin, 95, 96, 
416; and the Fall, 100. 

Experience, a source of theolo 
297, 298; and the Bible, 264-266. 

Experiment, test of scientific facts, 
197, 205-208, 433 ; furnishes proof 
of Christianity, 211-230, 434-488. 


’ 


FAIRBAIRN, ideal and real in Jesus, 
457. 

Faith, relation to religion, 38; true 
idea of, 127-129, 260, 420; errone- 
ous definition of, 128, 129, 420, 
441; Westminster Catechism on, 
129, 420 ; its nature, 129, 130, 157, 
158 ; its object, 130, 421; element 
in regeneration, 132-184; in sanc- 
tification, 157, 158; and love, 158 ; 
and the will, 243, 441; and reason, 
259-262, 420, 443, 444; view of, 
in early church, 384; in medieval 
church, 385, 386; Calvin’s doc- 
trine of, 420. 

Faith-faculty, no room for, 261, 262, 
444. 

Farrar, Free Thought, 379; on 
Pope’s Essay, 379, 380; on the 
atonement, 460. ; 

Father, the, revealed in regenera- 
tion, 146, 147, 225, 226; in sanc- 
tification, 176-178, 225, 226. 

Feeling, experimental evidence does 
not rest on, 255-259, 443, 444; a 
source of knowledge but not a 
faculty of knowledge, 256-258, 443. 

Feelings, effect of regeneration on, 
135, 136, 428. 

Feuerbach, naturalism of, 12. 

Fisher, on unregenerate reason, 354, 
459; on personality, 411; on 
miracles, 455; on prophecy, 456; 
on relation of Christianity to 
heathen religions, 460. 

Fiske, John, theism, 416. 

Fleming, on evidence, 308, 451. 

Flint, on knowledge of the Abso- 
lute, 62, 409; Theism, 403; uni- 
versality of religion, 404. 

Forgiveness, 147-151. 

Formal knowledge, 198, 199. 

Foster, Bishop, Philosophy of Chris- 
tian Experience, 430. 


INDEX. 


Frank, on experimental evidence, 
31, 401, 402; on man’s chief end, 
182; 421; on realism of Christian 
experience, 236, 439; his work on 
Christian Certinty not apologeti- 
cal, 401; his system, 402; on re- 
generation and conversion, 418; 
on Word and sacraments, 418, 
419; on congruity of Christianity 
to man’s need, 419; on the ‘new 
I,” 421; on relation of the old and 
new man, 421, 422; on effect of 
regeneration upon intellect, 422; 
on the certainty of regeneration, 
423, 485; his differences from 
Dorner, 423, 424; on divine causal- 
ity in regeneration, 425; does not 
use natural revelation, 425; on 
trinitarian and christological ele- 
ments, 426; on the Scripture and 
Christian experience, 426; on tra- 
ditional faith, 429; on doctrine 
of the Trinity, 429; on knowledge 
of real existence, 431 ; on notions, 
433; on immediate and _ un- 
mediated activity, 436; on op- 
position of unconverted men to 
Christianity, 441, 442; on ra- 
tionalistic objections, 444; on 
pantheistic objections, 447; on 
miracles, 455; on the miracle of | 
regeneration, 455, 456. 

Freedom of man, 80-87, 411-415; re- 
lation to race-sin, 97-99. 


GERMAN philosophy and theism, 
406, 407. 

Gieseler, on Spener, 458. 

God, conception of, in old natural 
theology, 42-45, 404, 405; proof 
for existence of, in old natural the- 
ology, 43-45, 495, 406 ; true concep- 
tion of, 45-419, 406-408 ; problem 
of knowledge in relation to, 49-60, 
408, 409; proof for existence of, 
60-68, 409; natural knowledge of, 
involved in Christian experience, 
215, 216; knowledge of, whether 
mediate or immediate, 217, 218, 
435, 436. 

Goethe, quotations from Faust, 9, 
234, 381, 489. 

Gospel, call of, 113-115 ; relation to 
Bible, 116, 117. 


Grau, quotation from Schopenhauer, 
199, 431; on faith the highest 
reason, 460. 

Green, ideas of God and duty, 53,409. 


467 
Grotius, apologetics of, 391. 


HAMILTON, Sir WoM., agnosticism 
of, 16, 382; dualism of, 253, 255, 
443. 

Harris, Samuel, on spiritual percep- 
tion, 215, 485; his works on 
theism, 403; on religious expe- 
rience, 403; on Christianity the 
absolute religion, 404; on natural 
and revealed religion, 408; on 
nature and the supernatural, 410; 
on evolution, 410; on freedom, 
414; on Christ in the soul, 426; 
on permanent choices, 427; on 
common faith of Christians, 429, 
430; on Newtonian induction, 
434; on experience, 434; on faith- 
faculty, 444; on ideal and real in 
Jesus, 457; on Christianity and 
philosophy, 460. 

Heathen religions, how explained, 
4), 41; relation to Christianity, 
41; their view of prayer, 182; the 
assurance of their devotees, 266- 
268 ; compared with Christianity, 
362-364, 460. 

Hegel, decline of his philosophy, 12; 
theology of, 282, 447; identifies 
philosophy and religion, 361, 460; 
pantheism of, 406; on the Fall, 
416. 

Helvetius, materialism of, 70. 

Herbert, Lord, of Cherbury, deist, 
379 ; doctrines of, 380. 

Herrmann, on communion with God, 
277, 446. 

Hettinger, on certainty, 433; on 
faith and knowledge, 441; on 
pantheistic doctrine of God-man, 
447; on witness of the Spirit, 
448, 449, 451. 

Hodge, A. A., on free-will, 87, 412, 
4138. 

Hodge, Charles, on the experimental 
evidence, 80, 3898, 399; on the 
false mysticism, 290, 448; on the 
true mysticism, 238, 448; on in- 
ward teaching of the Spirit, 293, 
294, 449 ; on experience as a source 
of theology, 297, 449 ; on the work 
of the Holy Spirit, 428. 

Holiness, increase of, in Christian 
experience, 161, 162. 

Hollaz, on the witness of the Spirit, 
450, 

Holy Spirit, revealed in regenera- 
tion, 141, 142, 221-223, 425, 437, 


468 


438; reveals Christ, 142-146, 
171-176, 223-225, 425, 426, 428; 
reveals the Father, 146, 147, 176- 
178, 225, 226; bears witness to 
forgiveness, 147-151; pledge of 
final blessedness, 151, 15%; re- 
vealed in sanctification, 169-171, 
221-223, 437, 488; Bible doctrine 
of, 170, 171; importance of, in 
evidence, 223; teaching of, and 
Bible, 292-294. 

Hooker, rational theologian, 379; on 
the true agnosticism, 438. 

Hopkins, Mark, on experimental 
evidence, 30, 3898; on faith, 420; 
on true self-love, 427. 
Hopkins, Samuel, on the divine 
efficiency, 412; on sin, 415, 416. 
Hume, on origin of religion, 38; on 
the mind, 79, 411; argument 
against miracles, 324, 325, 329, 
381, 455; on the inward miracle, 
334, 456 ; sceptical philosophy of, 
381. 

Hunt, English Thought, etc., 379. 

Huxley, on evolution of man, 74; 
agrees with Edwards, 87, 412. 


IMMORTALITY, 102, 103, 417. 

Intellect, effect of regeneration on, 
184, 135, 421, 422. 

Intuition, no direct, in Christian 
experience, 300, 301. 

Internal evidence, 348-358, 457-459, 


Jesus Curist, revealed through re- 
generation, 142-146, 223-225, 425, 
426 ; reveals the Father, 146, 147, 
176-178, 225, 226; revealed in sanc- 
tification, 171-176, 223-225, 428 ; 
central in evidence of experience, 
175, 176; nature of our knowledge 
of, 223-225; pantheistic doctrine 
of, 281-283, 447; evidence from 
person and work of, 388-844, 456, 
457; doctrine of, battlefield of 
modern apologetics, 338, 339; vic- 
tory of Christian view, 339, 340; 
conception of, in modern theology, 
340, 341; influence on men, 341, 
342; relation of evidence of ex- 
perience to, 342, 343; union of 
ideal and real in Christian concep- 
tion of, 343, 344, 457; contrasted 
with Buddha, 363, 460. 

Jevons, on scientific certainty, 212, 
434. 


INDEX. 


-KAFTAN, disciple of Ritschl, 446, 

| 447, 

Kahnis, views of Aquinas and An- 
selm on faith, 420. 

| Kant, his agnosticism, 16 ; his denial 
of the proofs of theism, 44, 52-55 ; 
on problem of knowledge, 50-55, 
199, 408, 409; limitations of knowl- 
edge, 51,52; his error, how cor- 
rected, 55; on ideal Christ, 176, 
274, 445 ; on the will as source of 
knowledge, 244, 441 ; moral ration- 
alism of, 272-274, 278, 279, 444, 
445. 

Kellogg, 8. H., Buddha and Christ, 
460 


Kingdom of God, the key to history, 
188, 189, 361, 362. 

Kingsley, on pronoun ‘‘I,” 78, 411; 
on consciousness of the mystic, 
287. 

Klaiber, on universality of Christian 
experience, 440; on the testimo- 
nium Spir. Sane. internum, 450, 
453. 

Knowledge, problem of, 49-60, 218, 
436; different kinds of, 198-205; 
formal, 198, 199, 481; of real ex- 
istences, 199, 200, 431; of proba- 
bility, 200-202, 432, 483; two ele- 
ments in real, 203-205; Christian 
experience based on real, 208; re- 
generation involves direct, 211-213, 
435; notional and real, 221, 482, 
437; of Christian realities, not 
open to the unregenerate, 247, 248, 
441, 442; sources of, and faculties 
of, 256-258, 443; relation to faith, 
259-262, 420, 441. 

Kurtz, on Pico of Mirandola, 460. 


LACTANTIUS, on truth, 252. 

Ladd, on prejudice and Bible study, 
453 ; on miracles, 455. 

Lange, History of Materialism, 439. 

Lechler, on English deism, 379. 


Leighton, on individual and race- 
sin, 246, 247, 441 ; on experimental 
knowledge of Christ, 428. 

Leland, on rational evidences, 345; 
on deism, 379; characterizes de- 
ists, 380. 

Lessing, on revelation an education, 
41, 404. 

Lewes, on futility of philosophy, 
359, 360, 460. 

Lobstein, on Kaftan’s theology, 446, 
447, 


INDEX. 


469 


Locke, on idea of God, 43, 405 ; psy- | Minutins Felix, apologetics of, 382. 


chological argument, 44, 405; his 
sensationalism, and influence on 
philosophy of religion, 46; on 
knowledge of self, 57, 409; doc- 
trine of man, 69, 70, 409; on mate- 
riality of the soul, 70, 409, 410; 
story of King of Siam, 245, 246, 
441; philosopher of the rational- 
istic age, 379; Reasonableness of 
Christianity, 380, 410; on enthusi- 
asm, 380; on faith and reason, 
420; on knowledge of particular 
existence, 431 ; on probability, 482. 
Logos spermatikos, 383. 
Lombard, Peter, apologetics of, 385. 
Love, relation to faith, 158 ; its nat- 
ure, 158, 159; to God, 159; to 
man, 159, 160; to self, 160. 
Luthardt, definition of religion, 403 ; 
quotation from Hollaz, 450; from 
Michaelis, 453 


Luther, and doctrine of ‘double | 


truth,” 253; on miracles of grace, 
332, 333, 456. 


Mav, rationalistic conception of, 69, 
70, 409; true view of, 71-109; al- 
lied to God, 71; superiority to 
nature, 72, 73, 410; relation of 
evolution to, 73-76, 410; true per- 
sonality of, 77-80, 411; freedom 
of, 80-87, 411-415; under moral 
law, 87-91, 415; responsibility of, 
91,92; a sinner, 92-96, 415, 416; 
implicated in race-sin, 96-100, 416; 
chief end of, 100-103, 158, 159, 
416; immortality of, 102, 103, 
417; need of redemption, 103-109. 

Mansel, agnosticism of, 16, 382; on 
morality in God, 89; dualism of, 
253. 

Martyr, Justin, Christian philoso- 
phy, 360; apologetics of, 382, 383. 

Martineau, Harriet, loss of faith, 
412, 413. 

Martineau, James, Study of Re- 
ligion, 403. 

Materialism, French, 70; view of 
man, 73; relation of evolution to, 
73-76 ; denies possibility of Chris- 
tian experience, 233, 234. 

Metaphysics of Christian experience 
denied, 272-280. 

Michaelis, on witness of the Spirit, 
319, 453. 

Mill, J. S., ethical theory of, 89, 90. 

Milton, on the Holy Spirit, 171, 428. 


Miracles, evidence of, 322-336, 455, 
456 ; place of, in old apologetics, 
3822-324, 455; Hume’s argument 
against, 324, 325, 455; reconstruc- 
tion in doctrine of, 825, 455; not 
violations of natural law, 326; 
constituent parts of revelation, 
327, 328; their relation to Jesus 
Christ, 328, 329; alleged modern, 
329, 335, 455; place in system 
of evidences, 829, 330; rendered 
credible by regeneration and the 
new life, 351-854, 455, 456 ; defini- 
tion of, 332; inner meaning of, 
334, 335, 

Moral argument for the divine ex- 
istence, 45, 65, 66. 

Moral law, the, and man, 87-91, 415; 
pantheistic view, 88, 89 ; material- 
istic and agnostic views, 89-91, 
415; true view, 91. 

More, rational theologian, 379. 

Morgan, attacks historical evi- 
dences, 381. 

Miiller, Julius, mediating theologian, 
399 ; on personality, 411 ; on faith, 
420; on object of faith, 421; on 
relation of Holy Spirit to the 
Word, 435, 436; quotation from 
Steffens, 442, 443 ; on Kant’s doc- 
trine of radical evil, 444. 

Miller, Max, universality of re- 
ligion, 404. 

Mystical union, the, 145, 146, 174, 
175, 179. 

Mysticism, 286-291, 447, 448; the 
false, 287, 288; the true, 288-291. 


NATURE and man, 72, 73, 410; and 
the supernatural, 72, 73, 410; laws 
of, 326. 

Neander, church history based on 
experience, 400; cognoscere and 
intelligere, 482. 

Newman, Cardinal, particularism 
of knowledge, 238, 439; quota- 
tions from Aristotle, 240, 4389, 
440; real and notional knowledge, 
452; on the testimony of the ex- 
perienced, 440; on Paley’s Evi- 
dences, 455; on presuppositions 
of Christian evidences, 461. 

Newtonian induction, 207, 208, 4384. 

Nirvana and heaven, 363. 

Nitzsch, mediating theologian, 399. 

Norris, rational theologian, 379. 

Notions or concepts, thought 


i 


470 


through, 201-205, 482, 433; ele- 
ments of probability in, 204, 205, 
433 ; progressive verification of, 
204, 205. 


ONTOLOGICAL argument for divine 
existence, 44, 61, 62. 

Origen, apologetics of, 382, 383. 

Orme, on Baxter, 391. 

Owen, on the experimental evidence, 
30, 394, 395; on notional and real 
knowledge, 221; on testimony of 
Christians, 440; on spiritual 
knowledge, 449; on insufficiency 
of external evidences, 452; on 
doctrines unintelligible to natural 
reason, 458. 


PALEY, author of Evidences, 3, 381 ; 
his system, 7; gives no place to 
experimental evidence, 30; on 
teleological argument, 45, 405; on 
testimony to miracles, 324. 

Pantheism, its insidiousness, 9; ex- 
plains Christianity naturalisti- 
cally, 10; its power of historical 
criticism, 10, 11; decline of its 
influence, 12, 15; its present 
power, 13; its influence on philos- 
ophy of religion, 46, 406, 407; its 
doctrine of man, 76, 77; denies 
personality, 80, 411; denies free- 
dom, 83; doctrine of sin, 93, 94; 
denies immortality, 102, 103; 
denies need of redemption, 103, 
104; element of truth im, 222; its 
objection to evidence of expe- 
rience, 280; doctrines of, 280-285, 
447, 

Particularism, of Christian expe- 
rience, 236-241; of knowledge, 
238, 239. 

Peip, on scientific opponents of 
Christianity, 232, 458; on univer- 
sality of Christian experience, 440. 

Penitence distinguished from  re- 
pentance, 128. 

Personality of man, asserted by 
theism, 77-80, 411; denied by 
non-theistic philosophies, 79, 80. 

Pfleiderer, on the *‘‘double truth,” 
253, 442; theology of, 282, 447; 
Religionsphilosophie, 379, 403 ; on 
Hume, 381; God known in expe- 
rience, 435; on dangers to faith, 
443 ; on Kant’s doctrine of Christ, 
445; on Ritschlianism, 447; on 
mysticism, 448, 


INDEX. 


Philosophy, and the natural man, 
254; relation to Christian expe- 
rience, 254, 255; evidence from 
Christianity and, 358-362, 460, 

Pico of Mirandola, on philosophy, 
361. 

Pomponatius, 
truth,” 253. 

Pope, poet of rationalism, 379; War- 
burton and, 380. 

Porter, Noah, on self-consciousness, 
409; on probable reasoning, 433 ; 
on notion or concept, 433. 

Positivism, denies possibility of 
Christian experience, 232, 233. 

Prayer, aims at particular blessings, 
182; implies activity on the part 
of God, 183, 184; reflex influence, 
183-186 ; answers to, 185-188; evi- 
dence thus afforded, 185-188. 

Pre-Christian experience, 122-125; 
gives only probable knowledge, 
210, 211. 

Presuppositions in historical inver- 
tigation, 316, 317, 337, 452. 

Probability and certainty, 201, 202, 
432, 433. 

Probable knowledge, 200-208, 432, 
433 ; element of, in Christian ex- 
perience, 208, 209; in pre-Chris- 
tian experience, 210, 211. 

Prophecy, evidence of, 336-338, 456 ; 
its relation to experimental evi- 
dence, 337, 338. : 

Prophet, the Christian a, 188, 189, 
337, 338, 456. 

Providence, and prayer, 187, 188. 

Puritan theologians, and experimen- 
tal evidence, 30, 391-395. 


teaches ** double 


QUAKERISM, doctrine of ‘inward 
light,’’ 291-294 ; elements of truth 
in, 291, 292, 448; doctrine of re- 
lation of Spirit and Bible, 292, 
293, 448, 449. 


RALEIGH, on evolution, 95, 416. 

Rationalism, 9; conception of God, 
42-45 ; objects to supernatural 
element in Christian experience, 
270-272 ; rationalism among Chris- 
tians, 291; in seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, 379-381. 

Real existences, knowledge of, 199, 
200 ,431 ; involved in Christian ex- 
perience, 209, 

Reason, ideas of, Kant on, 50-55; 
true view of, 56-60; relation of, 


phi 


INDEX. 


471 


to faith, 259-262, 420; relation to | Ritschl, theology of, 274-279, 445- 


revelation, 356, 357. 

Reasonableness of Christian doc- 
trines, 348-358 ; why not recogniz- 
ed by those not Christians, 353, 
354; need of Christian experience 
to understand them, 354. 

Redemption, man’s need of, 103-109. 

Regeneration, how described in 
Bible, 131, 132, 421; effect on the 
will, 132-134, 421; effect on the 
intellect, 134, 185, 422; on the 
feelings, 135, 186, 423 ; on the con- 
science, 136, 137; fact of, first step 
in experimental evidence, 138, 139, 
155, 211-213, 423-425, 435 ; implies 
a divine Cause, 139-141, 213-219, 
425, 435-437; reveals the Holy 
Spirit, 141, 142, 221-223; reveals 
Christ, 142-146, 223-225, 425, 426; 
reveals the Father, 146, 147, 225, 
226; the forgiveness of sins, 147- 
151; the Christian fellowship 
in Christ, 151; pledge of final 
blessedness, 151, 152, 426; rela- 
tion of sanctification to, 156; 
known directly, 211, 212; mys- 
terious, 216, 217; accredits mir- 
acles, 331-334, 455, 456; itself in 
a sense miraculous, 332, 335, 456. 

Religion, old definition of, 57, 403 ; 
true definition of, 87, 38; origin 
of, 38, 39; its universality, 39, 40, 
404; science of, 40. 

Religions, heathen, and Christian- 
ity, 40, 41, 362-564. 

Religious argument for the divine 
existence, 66, 67. 

Renan, conception of Christ, 341, 
456. 

Repentance, what it is, 127, 128; 
confounded with penitence, 128 ; 
element in regeneration, 151, 132; 
in sanctification, 156, 157. 

Revelation, what it is, 20; as facts, 
20-22; as doctrine, 22, 23; the 
natural, 48, 49; precondition of 
Christian experience, 118-117,173, 
210, 213, 220, 264-266; distin- 
guished from Bible, 116, 117; 
verified by Christian experience, 
313-322, 346-358 ; relation of mir- 
acles to, 327-829, 334, 335; ante- 
cedent probability of, 346-348 ; 
reasonableness of, 348-362; doc- 
trine of, in early church, 354; in 
medizval church, 385 ; among Re- 
formers, 386, 387. 


447; on communion with God, 
277. 

Romanes, on evolution of man, 74 
410, 

Rothe, mediating, theologian, 399 ; 
on immediate and unmediated 
activity, 436; on miracles, 455. 

Riickert, proofs of divine existence, 
iL. 


’ 


SANCTIFICATION, relation to regen- 
eration, 156 ; and repentance, 156, 
157; and faith, 157, 158; and 
love, 158-160, 427; involves in- 
creasing holiness, 161, 162 ; ability 
for service, 162, 163; knowledge 
and wisdom, 163, 164; conflicts 
involved, 164, 165; strength of 
evidence derived from, 165, 166; 
implies divine Cause, 166-168 ; 
reveals Trinity, 168-179, 221-226, 
428, 429; communion with God as 
an element in, 179-188 ; relation to 
kingdom of God 188, 189; to 
common experience of Christians, 
189-191, 429, 480; involves in- 
creasing assurance, 191-194, 430; 
and strengthening evidence, 226- 
28; accredits miracles, 331, 334. 

Schelling, on heathen_ religions, 
41. 

Schleiermacher, turns tide of ration- 
alism, 31; his use of the Christian 
consciousness, 294-298, 449; his 
contributions to Christian theol- 
ogy, 296, 399. 

Schopenhauer, on mathematics, 199, 
431. 

Science, fundamental task of, 197, 
205, 206; influence of the will in, 
242, 243. 

Science, physical, its influence on 
apologetics, 13-17; on conception 
of God, 46, 407, 408. 

Seeley, Natural Religion, 409. 

Self, idea of, Kant on, 50; true view 
of, 57, 58. 

Sense-perception, method of, 214, 
215. ; 

Service, increasing ability for, 162, 


Seth, on Hegel, 411. 

Sin, and man, 92-96; its nature, 93; 
denied by pantheism, 93, 94, 416; 
by agnosticism, 94-96, 416; of the 
race and the individual, 97-100, 
246, 247, 416; remaining, 164, 165; 


472 


makes Christian experience unin- 
telligible, 246-248. 

Smith, Goldwin, story about 
Duchess of Buckingham, 442, 

Smith, H. B., definition of religion, 
38, 403; on Schleiermacher, 294, 
449; on nature and the super- 
natural, 410; on Strauss, 411; on 
Sir Wm. Hamilton, 443; on re- 
lation of Christianity to philos- 
ophy, 460, 

Smith, John, rational theologian, 
379; on the knowledge of Christ, 
428; on spiritual sensation, 434, 

Smyth, Newman, on feeling as 
source of knowledge, 259, 443, 
444, 

Sorbonne, the, and doctrine of 
‘double truth,’’ 253. 

Spencer, Herbert, his agnostic Sys- 
tem, 16, 382; on origin of religion, 
39, 404; on knowledge of the Ab- 
solute, 61, 62, 409; evolutionary 
philosophy of, 74; on the mind, 
80, 411; on freedom, 83, 411, 412; 
evolutionary ethics of, 89-91, 415; 
the Absolute unknowable, 238, 
438 ; dualism, 253; the Unknown 
as object of religion, 407; on right 
and wrong, 416; materialistic ex- 
planation of the universe, 438, 
439. 

Spener, on the theologia irregeni- 
torum, 458. : 


Spinoza, doctrine of Christ, 27 
445, 


wit, 

Spiritual perception, 213-215. 

Stihlin, on Kant, Lotze,and Ritschl, 
445, 

Stanton, R. L., on modern miracles, 
455, 

Steffens, on Christian 
442, 443. 

Stewart, on probable proof, 432, 433. 

Strauss, Leben Jesu, 11, 339, 382 ; 
mythical theory, 11, 339; second 
Leben Jesu, 12; on origin of re- 
ligion, 39; conception of Christ, 
341; new faith of, 411; on the 
God-man, 447; on the witness of 
the Spirit, 450, 451. 

Subjectivity of Christian experience, 
299-301. 

Swift on the Molists, 380, 


philosophy, 


TAYLOR, rational theologian, 379. 
Teleological argument for the divine 
existence, 44, 63-65, 


INDEX. 


| Tennyson, on the genesis of self- 
consciousness, 58, 409. 

Tertullian, anima naturaliter, etc., 
239, 440; his paradox, 254, 442 ; 
apologetics of, 382. 

Testimonium Spiritus Sancti inter- 
num, 29; and evidence of Chris- 
tian experience, 302-304, 888-890 : 
and the Bible, 317-319, 388, 391, 
450, 451; mediated by the new 
life, 424, 425; definition of, 450. 

Testimony of Christians, its value 
as evidence, 240, 241, 440, 

Theistic philosophy, what it is, 34 ; 
its conception of God, 42-49; its 
proof of God, 49-68 ; its concep- 
tion of man, 69-109; asserts pos- 
sibility of Christian experience, 
234-236, 

Theologia irregenitorum, 304, 458. 

Theologians, mediating, 399, 

Thikétter, on Ritschl, 445. 

Tholuck, mediating theologian, 399. 

Tiele, universality of religion, 404. 

Tindal, ‘‘ Deist’s Bible,” 380. 

Toland, Christianity not Mysteri- 
ous, 380. 

Trendelenberg, Logische Untersuch- 
ungen, 403. 

Trinity, the, in Christian experi- 
ence, 168, 169, 219; doctrine of, 
not thus given, 178, 179, 298, 429, 
437; pantheistic doctrine of, 282, 
447; doctrine of, reasonable, 357, 
459, 

Tiibingen School, attack on New- 
Testament, 11, 12, 382. 

Tulloch, ontological argument, 62, 
409; quotation from Dr. John 
Smith, 484, 

Twesten, mediating theologian, 399. 

Tylor, on origin of religion, 39, 404 ; 
peae superiority to animals, 
410. 


UEBERWEG, influence of will in sci- 
ence, 242, 441; on sufficient cause, 
272, 444; on testimony, 440, 

Unintelligibility of Christian expe- 
rience to the unconverted, 245-252, 
441, 442, 458. 


VAUGHAN, on false mysticism, 287, 
447, 448; on Edwards’s theory of 
spiritual knowledge, 444: Dow- 
den’s estimate of, 447, 448, 

Vincent, on modern miracles, 455. 

Vogt, materialism of, 12. 


INDEX. 


WALLACE, on evolution and man, | 


75, 410. 

Warfield, on Darwin, 382. 

Watts, on the experimental evi- 
dence, 30, 395; the new life a 
miracle, 140, 141, 167, 425, 456; 
on the witness of the Spirit to 
eternal life, 152, 426; on the 
strength of the experimental evi- 
dence, 166, 427; apologetics of, 
395; on works of Christ in the 
soul, 425, 426; on the testimony 
of Christians, 440; on the reason- 
ableness of the experimental evi- 
dence, 443; on fluctuations in 
Christian experience, 450; gives 
the highest place to the experi- 
mental evidence, 452; on the rela- 
tion of the experimental evidence 
to the Bible, 453; on infidel as- 
saults upon the Bible, 454. 

Weiss, Life of Christ, 340, 456. 
Wesleys, the, religious revival, 3. 
Westminster Catechism, on God, 
47; on sin, 95; on repentance, 


473 


127, 128; on faith, 128, 420; value 
for instruction of the young, 
351. 


Westminster Confession, on experi- 


mental evidence, 30; on witness 
of the Spirit in Christian assur- 
ance, 889 ; on witness of the Spirit 
to the truth of Scripture, 390, 
391; on freedom of man, 412. 


Whichcote, rational theologian, 379. 
Whitefield, religious revival, 3. 
Will, the action of, necessary to 


Christian experience, 126, 127, 
241-245, 441; effects of regenera- 
tion on, 182-134, 421; objection 
grounded on the action of, 241- 
245, 441; a source of knowledge, 
244, 245, 441 ; action of, in science, 
242 243° 441, 


Wilson, Bishop, on experimental 


evidence, 30, 398, 


Wisdom, Christian, an element in 


sanctification, 163, 164. 


Woolston, attacks miracles, 381. 
Wordsworth, on prayer, 182, 


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